


Sinking Ships

by standinginanicedress



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Discrimination, M/M, non-con elements, werewolves as a ruling class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-06 00:33:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 106,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4201074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standinginanicedress/pseuds/standinginanicedress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek Hale has never met a human before. </p><p>Throughout his life, he's probably encountered, give or take, a hundred or so. A mere hundred human beings in his twenty-three years walking around on earth, compared to the <em>millions</em> of weres he's seen. And, even then, encountered them he might have, but <em>met</em>? Not even close. </p><p>He's had his dry cleaning handed off to him by a mousy looking human girl in a shirt three sizes too big for her with huge eyes and shaking hands while a beta werewolf yelled at her in the background for being too skittish (wonder why <em>that</em> could possibly be), he's walked past teenage humans cleaning windows and sweeping pebbles off of sidewalks, he's had the door opened up for him by older humans in pristine uniforms outside of restaurants – but never, never once, has he stuck his hand out to a human and said <em>hi, my name is...</em></p><p>He could probably count on one hand the number of times he's even been made aware that a human within a hundred feet of him even <em>had</em> a name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> first of all I know I'm a fake bitch because I keep saying "YEA MAN I'M WRITING THAT SEQUEL TO THAT OTHER FIC!!" about like...FOUR fics of mine lmao and I SWEAR I am writing the sequels I'm not telling you dirty lies - it's just that sequels for some reason are a lot more time consuming and strenuous than brand new ideas!? I'm doing it though don't give up on me 
> 
> second of all, yes this is a WIP but if there's one thing you can rely on me for, it's that as soon as something is posted, I'm going to finish it lmao. You will NEVER see me post something and then leave it to fester and die unfinished. This will def be complete before the 4th of July (perhaps _on_ the 4th of July to be festive). Three chapters is tentative right now - it might be four? We shall see 
> 
> trigger warnings : because it's an arranged marriage fic wherein werewolves are a ruling class and humans are subservient, there are non-con elements involving power dynamics. There's also a lot of discussion of sexual assault against humans (though never any graphic scenes) so that's something to be aware of. Stiles starts the fic as seventeen, but he's eighteen before Derek even really thinks about touching him so that's why there's no underage tag! It's probably a "dark fic" as people like to say but ofc there's a happy ending
> 
> and one last thing - there's a lot of comments made about Stiles like "he is SO tiny he is so small" and I bet people would think like 'wtf is he the size of a large child' but no lmao he's not. He's the same size as he was in s1 of the show it's just that wolves in this verse are bigger generally 
> 
> anyway onward

Derek Hale has never met a human before. 

Throughout his life, he's probably encountered, give or take, a hundred or so. A mere hundred human beings in his twenty-three years walking around on earth, compared to the _millions_ of weres he's seen. And, even then, encountered them he might have, but _met_? Not even close. 

He's had his dry cleaning handed off to him by a mousy looking human girl in a shirt three sizes too big for her with huge eyes and shaking hands while a beta werewolf yelled at her in the background for being too skittish (wonder why _that_ could possibly be), he's walked past teenage humans cleaning windows and sweeping pebbles off of sidewalks, he's had the door opened up for him by older humans in pristine uniforms outside of restaurants – but never, never once, has he stuck his hand out to a human and said _hi, my name is..._

He could probably count on one hand the number of times he's even been made aware that a human within a hundred feet of him even _had_ a name. The only identifiers they have (aside from the sickly-sweet _weak_ scent and the constant anxiety rolling off them in waves) are the barbaric ways that weres have come up with to brand them; huge tattoos that must've taken hours scrawled across their fragile backs or all up and along their arms, brands burned into their chests like they're cattle being herded this way and that, deep knife cuts spelling out names or addresses (if found, return to...) 

One could imagine that creatures whose skin has the ability to heal would be fascinated by others who don't have the same talents. In a lot of ways, the tattoos and brands and whatever the hell else weres can come up with are just them experimenting with the weaker class. Playing around with their toys, so to speak. Tiny little fragile boned humans, genetically engineered to be smaller and frailer than weres, more prone to break, more easily tossed around as if they're nothing. 

So, case in point, the humans don't get a lot of opportunities to be anything more than decorations or little servants rushing around to cater to Derek's every whim before he even has a chance to open his mouth to say _that's really not necessary..._

“Look at this place,” his mother is huffing now, glaring out the tinted dark window of their town car with a frown etched into her lips. “I wish I'd gone right ahead and brought the camera crew along with me. Let weres really _see_ what it's like out here.” 

Derek thinks that there are some weres out there who wouldn't give a fuck if there was video evidence of humans being lined up and mass executed – to some of them out there, though their numbers might be dwindling, humans are nothing more than pretty science experiments. They're not real people, like Derek or another wolf. They're toys, at best. And a kid can do anything he wants with the toys he's given, right? 

If Talia had dragged a camera crew to this human orphanage all the way on the fringes of Los Angeles, some weres wouldn't bat an eyelash at the dirt yard with broken toys scattered all across the front, the windows with shutters half hanging off the sides of the house, the roof that's almost entirely caved in. It wouldn't phase them at all. 

She tsk's, slides her sunglasses onto her face, and waits for the driver to come around to pull open her door. “If I ever needed a sign to let me know that I'm doing the right thing,” an imaginary piece of lint gets flicked off her pristine pencil skirt by two manicured fingernails, “the sight of this place is sure as Hell doing the trick.” 

Derek scowls. The way he sees it, his mother _isn't_ doing the right thing, not at fucking all. The right thing would be to round up all the humans underneath the control of weres and drop them all back in human sanctuaries, far, far away from claws and leering, glowing eyes. 

And he knows that's not a possibility. Not yet. He knows that if he goes through with this and does exactly as his mother and her team of advisers say, that he'll be opening up the door for the chance that some day humans will be able to be seen as equals and not just _things_. 

But the thought of being just another werewolf taking away a human's right to choose for themselves what they want to do, and who they want to be, and where they want to go – who they get to fucking _marry_ , for Christ's sake – makes him sick to his stomach. 

Finally, their driver opens the door up for them and sunny golden light spills across his mother's dark clothing. She gives one last glance to her son, and even though Derek can't see her eyes through the lenses of her sunglasses, he can tell there's a disproving stare waiting there for him just from the set of her lips. “I know you're not happy,” she says under her breath – as if she actually fucking thinks one of the human children milling around on the porch or in the dirt of the yard could hear them from all the way over here, “but if you stand there scowling at him, you'll only make things worse.” 

The last thing Derek wants is to frighten the human. It's inevitable that he will either way, prior experiences with humans literally fleeing at the sight of him or cowering or shaking or leaping away if he got too close have told him as much. But his mother's right; glaring and frowning at the kid isn't going to help the situation at all. 

He adjusts his face into something more nonchalant, rubs at his eyes for the millionth time since his mother sat him down and delivered the news that he'd be marrying a human being against the kid's will, and follows Talia out onto the cracked sidewalk. 

As they walk down the cobblestone path leading up to the front door the orphanage – _Mother Mary's Human Rescue_ , Christ, as if they're puppies someone picked up out of cardboard boxes on the side of the highway – the handful of younger children playing around in the yard stop whatever they're doing and stare, wide eyed. Maybe most of these kids are too young to recognize exactly who it is that they're looking at, but every single one of them knows that they're weres. Humans don't wear clothes this nice. Humans don't ride up in sleek black town cars. Humans don't have a security guard trailing behind them. 

None of them get up and run away screaming, but they stay frozen in place, as if they're afraid that if they move one of the weres walking past them will reach out to strike them for acting out. Derek sets his jaw and tries not to think about how all their clothes are in tatters like they've been worn and reworn and reworn for twenty years, how all their toys are either absolute junk or just sticks and rocks they've picked out of the dirt. 

Humans doing the best with what they've got, Derek surmises. Maybe they don't know that there's anything better out there. 

Before they've even reached the rickety wooden steps of the front porch, the screen door is being thrown open so hard that it smacks against the opposite wall. A tall, wiry werewolf with a messy head of hair on top of her head and a white sundress stained with what looks like grape juice practically steam rolls across the porch to greet them with a huge, fake grin and a _HELLO!_

Talia smiles at her. The same smile she always uses for appearances. “Hello. You must be -”

“You're here for the kid, right?” 

There's a pause. Talia clears her throat and Derek averts his eyes to the huge cherry tree growing in the backyard. “We're here to collect St -”

“Oh great,” she spins around on her heel and vanishes back into the house, leaving the screen door wide open. From inside the house, there's the sound of a television blasting early morning cartoons so loud that Derek's sure any wolf within a three mile radius could hear it crystal clear if they focused, a shower running, two girls bickering over a Barbie doll, and, finally, the sound of Mary's voice shouting about _do you have everything do you have your book do you have your shoes your jacket -_

Derek runs his hands down the front of his dress shirt nervously. He had slightly dressed up for the occasion, figured that he should. Like he should at least do the human the courtesy of brushing his hair and putting some thought into the outfit he's going to introduce himself in. But now, he just feels stupid. As if he's rubbing in the fact that he has money for Calvin Klein button downs and five hundred dollar shoes. A bizarre part of him feels like ripping the shirt clean off to leave him in only his crisp white undershirt, just casual and normal and not so fucking pretentious and snobby and holier-than-thou, or possibly just turning around and fleeing the scene altogether.

The footsteps get closer, and Derek repeats the things he read about the human in the folder his mother had given him.

He used to like to climb trees a lot, Derek reminds himself, as if any of this means anything. He's had to go to the human hospital five times in his life for broken bones from falling out of said trees; Talia had paid the debt for his hospital bills off the second she heard about this, and Derek imagined that was her one good deed of the day. She probably pats herself on the back for that every chance she gets. He's Caucasian, he used to live in a human sanctuary until they took him away, he has very few dental records – useless fact after useless fact, kept in a stupid little folder for weres to peruse through if they ever felt like buying a human. 

“He's smart,” his mother had said proudly, leaning back in her cushioned seat while the skyline behind her glowed brightly. “He likes to read, you know!” The way she said it was so belittling; she probably didn't even notice that. _Aw, the human can read! He understands words! How adorable!_

Talia tries. She really, truly tries. She's running for another term in office, and basing half her platform on human rights. She's always pushing to free the few humans who are actually trapped in unfair contracts, to send those who want to back to their families and homes, and she at least believes that humans should have equal rights. 

But even with all that, some stereotypes run too deep. It would take a very, very long time for Derek to explain to his mother why looking at all the humans like some little pet project she's taking on instead of actual people with their own agency is wrong. She wouldn't get it. As far as she's concerned, humans and weres are different, plain and simple, and weres are better and faster and stronger. 

Her whole belief system is based on the fact that humans are weak and helpless and need to be saved by the big strong wolves to look out for them. It's not as benign as she thinks it is.

But at least she's trying. At least she's doing _something_ , while everyone else stands around with their hands in their pockets, looking the other way whenever they see a were abusing a human. 

After what feels like a solid hour of standing out there on that porch listening to a little boy thunk a little girl over the head with a toy baseball bat, the wiry woman from before comes back into the doorway and out onto the porch, hauling a skinny teenage boy along with her. 

Out of old habit, Derek inhales first thing to make a map out of his scent. Humans have stronger scents than weres do, mostly based on the fact that they have no way to cover it up or try to hide their tracks. They all reek, really, and this kid is no exception. He smells like nerves, cheap shampoo, sugar cereal, and something else that's just – _him_. 

It's not a bad scent. 

“Here he is,” Mother Mary says, squeezing his shoulders and pushing him forwards. He drags his feet a little, ratty old sneakers squeaking on the porch, but eventually concedes that there's no point in trying to stop this from happening. He frowns, adjusts his plain black t-shirt, and glares at the ground. 

Derek, for lack of anything better to do and feeling entirely uncomfortable, looks to his mother. 

“Here's his papers – they're all true!” She says this last part with a little too much enthusiasm. “He's not defective or anything, I swear. He can write, he's helped me with the cooking -” Talia flips through the papers Mary handed her perfunctorily, and Derek glances over her shoulder to see what little medical records he has, his human status card, a short list of former 'residences' (fancy talk for _who has already owned him before_.) “...he won't give you any trouble.” At this, Mary digs her fingers a bit too deeply into the flesh of the kid's shoulder, squeezing so hard that he actually winces and Derek catches a whiff of pain on the air. “Isn't that right, Stiles?” 

Stiles' lips quirk, his jaw ticks, like he's about to start shouting or cussing somebody out. Instead, he just nods his head once, tersely, still glaring at his feet.

“See?” Like she's just proven the point of the century, Mary grins and pats Stiles on the shoulder.

Stiles adjusts his backpack, looks up briefly to look at Talia's face, then Derek's, but doesn't say a word. He's probably been told to never speak out of turn in the presence of weres. 

“If that's all then!” Another shove, this one harder, so Stiles stumbles forward, only coming to a stop a foot or so away from where Talia is pushing the human's papers into her oversized purse. “He's all yours!” 

She takes a step back and puts her hands on her hips, beaming, like this is the greatest day of her life. And, really, every time she manages to shirk some human out from underneath her grasp, it really _is_ a great day. One less mouth to feed, one less human running around giving her grief, one less obnoxious scent assaulting her nostrils. Weres like this shouldn't be running human orphanages, Derek thinks to himself; matter of fact, no weres at all should be running _anything_ in regards to humans. 

Clearly, Talia had been expecting some kind of fanfare, because she just stands there for a second with her lips parted. Behind her glasses, her eyes click between Stiles and Mary again and again, as though she's waiting for there to be a tearful hug or some kind of goodbye or sendoff. 

None comes, and Derek shifts his feet awkwardly. Stiles just stands there, fingers anxiously tugging at the straps of his bag, not looking at either werewolf in front of him.

“Okay,” Talia says slowly, before another tight smile crosses her face. “Stiles,” she says his name like she's talking to an injured animal, “do you know who I am?” 

Stiles looks up and meets her eyes head on, though his expression doesn't change from slightly hostile indifference. “Talia Hale,” he says, deadpan, like he's not impressed. “Alpha.” 

Talia absolutely lights up, nodding her head enthusiastically as if Stiles just did a back flip for her, before sticking her hand out in his direction. “It's nice to meet you!” 

Hesitantly, with a look on his face that suggests he'd much rather stick his hand into a vat of hissing rattlesnakes, Stiles takes her hand and allows her to shake his up and down. He does it awkwardly, like he's only ever seen it done in movies and is just copying what he's watched werewolves do on screen. 

As soon as their hands part, Talia is putting her arm around Derek's shoulder proudly. Derek watches as Stiles slowly moves his eyes all over every part of him; from the height difference between them, the way Derek's shoulders are broader, how he's more muscled, huger than Stiles in every sense of the word, and doesn't miss the way that Stiles' heartbeat upticks in what could be fear. 

“This is my son, Derek,” Talia says calmly. “He's going to take care of you from here on out, all right?” Again, with the talking to him the same way she'd talk to a little kid or a stupid person, her voice all high pitched and almost _mocking_. 

Stiles' jaw ticks again, amber eyes scanning up and down Derek for a brief second. “Hi,” he says, in a small voice. Most things about Stiles, as a matter of fact, are _small_ when compared to most things about Derek. That's the way all the humans are bred, whereas wolves have only reproduced with each other and kind of evolved to be _bigger_ , but seeing it up close like this, really _looking_ at the differences between them – it's almost staggering. 

Because he doesn't think that he can get his vocal chords working appropriately at the moment, Derek doesn't say anything. Instead, he puts his hand out the exact same way his mother had done, and waits. 

Like Derek said before. He's never in his life met a human. The closest he's ever really gotten to one is when a girl accidentally bumped into him in the street and spent the next thirty seconds grovelling apologies at him; but that, and that alone, is the one time he's ever had direct skin to skin contact with another human.

Point being, he's never touched one. Meaning, he has no idea exactly how much _stronger_ than a human he is, how much weaker Stiles is, how easy it would be for Derek to snap Stiles' neck without a second thought.

So, when Stiles puts his hand in Derek's and Derek squeezes like he would to a were, it's only a millisecond before – _snap_. Derek doesn't even have the time to realize what he's done. 

Stiles recoils, pulling his hand back and crying out in pain as the scent of human hurt fills the air. It smells bitter, like orange rinds or lemon peels, and Derek doesn't understand how any wolf anywhere can enjoy hurting a human if _that's_ how it smells. 

“Jesus _Christ_ , Derek!” His mother chides, moving forward to wrap her fingers around Stiles' skinny wrist to look at the mess Derek's gone and made. 

Absolutely horrified, Derek can only stand there and watch as his mother coos and pokes at Stiles, making disappointed noises in the back of her throat and giving Stiles apologetic looks. “I'm – sorry, I – didn't know -” he _didn't know._ He really had no fucking idea what humans are really like. 

Talia gives him a dark look. “ _God_ ,” she hisses between her teeth, turning Stiles' hand this way and that while he just sniffles and wipes at his tearing eyes with the back of his free hand. Now Derek guesses that she's glad she didn't bring the fucking camera crew along to film this great moment in time; she wouldn't be making very many strides with human rights' groups if they caught her son brutalizing a human on film. “You snapped his finger clean in half, Derek,” and it's said like it's more an _annoyance_ than anything else, a trip to the hospital she doesn't feel like making. 

Throughout it all, Stiles just stands there. He lets Talia move his hand this way and that, even though every time she does he whines in pain from the back of his throat. At no point does he make any moves to try and run, or to get away from the wolves – maybe because he knows it would be pointless. He gives Derek one teary-eyed glance, and in his eyes Derek sees resignation. A person who has accepted his fate. Getting broken fingers is just something that happens to him, now, since he's going to be living with wolves. That's probably exactly what he thinks. 

And Derek fucking hates himself. For the entire fucking situation. 

In the car, Stiles presses himself as far up against the door on his side as he can manage, glares out the window, and sniffles softly to himself, his mangled hand sitting in his lap, while that bitter scent of pain floods the entire cabin and makes Derek feel like a caged animal. 

Talia had taken it upon herself to stow up in the front passenger seat when they all clambered in, citing something about _you boys get to know each other!_

Nevermind the fact that they're going to be _getting to know each other_ on the drive to the fucking human hospital three hours away because Derek just broke Stiles' tiny little finger clean in half like a brute. How much conversation could they really fucking have? 

“Stiles!” Talia chides as the car starts moving, and Stiles jerks a bit, widening his eyes and looking around himself like _what did I do wrong?_ Derek rubs his eyes again. “Your seatbelt!” 

There's a beat of silence, Stiles blinking owlishly at her, before he looks over to his left and sees the seatbelt sitting there on the seat, waiting to be pulled across his chest. He looks at it like he's either never seen it before or, at least, has never been told to wear one. Derek wonders when the last time Stiles was in an actual car before, and not just a rickety old van carting him away from his family in the human sanctuary to drag him off to government ordered purgatory. 

Finally, he reaches up slowly and tugs at the seatbelt, clicking it into place, before going right on back to staring out the window, his entire body pressed against the door. He still hasn't taken his backpack off.

Derek thinks about how horrible it must be to be surrounded by wolves like this, as just a pathetic little injured human. He wonders how much Stiles has heard about wolves, the way that they treat humans, what Mother Mary really treated him like the years he's spent in that horrible orphanage with all those other kids. He thinks that those aren't exactly the kinds of questions he's supposed to be asking in his mother-ordered quest to learn about his new fiancee, so he clears his throat and tries to think of something, anything else. 

“So,” he starts, voice thick with awkwardness and forced nonchalance. “You're – are you – are you okay?” 

Derek has broken bones before, so he knows how it feels, but he also has healed them all near instantaneously. So he wouldn't know anything about the throbbing, swelling feeling; from how Stiles' broken finger is plumping and reddening up, he'd guess it hurts a lot more when it has to sit there without healing for days. _Days_. Derek can't even fucking imagine that. 

Stiles doesn't look away from the window. “Yeah,” he says, voice sounding tight. “Sorry.” 

_Sorry_? Talia meets his eyes in the rearview mirror with a stern look, like now this is a situation that Derek has to rectify himself. “No, it's – not your fault?” 

Aside from a small sniffle, Stiles doesn't respond to that. 

“I know you've been to this particular hospital before,” Talia chirps from the front, twisting her body around to get a better look at Stiles. “Is it nice there? Clean?” 

Finally, the human turns his eyes away from the window and gives Talia a quizzical look, shifting his eyes anxiously to Derek for a quick moment before looking back at Talia. “I guess.” 

This answer clearly doesn't satisfy Talia whatsoever. She huffs out a breath, purses her lips. “I bet it's a nightmare. The amount of funding they get – in spite of the fact that they're supposed to get millions of dollars from donations and taxes – it's just pitiful. I know they spend that money elsewhere,” her classic television expression crosses her face, all serious and determined. “I intend to change that.” 

Stiles looks at her like he doesn't even know where to _begin_ with what to make of her or anything that she's saying. He doesn't know how to respond, how to add anything into the conversation. He curls himself deeper into his seat, casts his eyes down to his lap, and uses his good fingers to play with a loose thread on his jeans. 

This is awful, Derek decides resolutely in his own head. Absolutely fucking horrific and horrible, and he should've fought his mother a lot harder on this, refused to go through with it. How, exactly, is picking some traumatized seventeen year old up out of an orphanage and wrapping him into a political marriage with a wolf not any worse than what other humans have to go through on a day to day basis? 

The problem is, he's already agreed to it. And there's a human already sitting in the seat next to him being carted away from his entire life, however shitty it may have been there it was still his life, with a broken finger. 

The only option now, Derek guesses, is to try and make it as _not_ horrible as possible. Not entirely unhorrible, but just – less. _Less_ horrible. Derek can do less horrible. 

Carefully, Derek moves his hand to the middle of the seat, right in between their bodies. “I really am sorry,” he forces as much sincerity into his voice as possible, “about your finger. I really didn't mean to – I'm not -”

“It was an accident,” Talia chimes in, unwelcome, and Derek feels like kicking the back of her seat and telling her to face front and shut the hell up so he can smooth things over with his human. _His_ human, Christ, he can't believe he just thought that – he's _a_ human. He doesn't belong to anyone. “You know how different human bodies and werewolf bodies are, right Stiles?” 

Derek gives his mother a death glare, before turning back to Stiles. There's one solid message he needs to drill into this kid's head, probably again and again until it's understood and known - “I'm not going to hurt you.” 

In one of the most unbelievable acts of defiance Derek has ever in his life seen from a human, Stiles looks Derek dead in the eyes, lifts his mangled hand in the air like _oh, really?_ , and doesn't even blink, his jaw set tight and angry. 

For a second, Derek is so flabbergasted he can't even think of anything to say. He's not angry, he's just – fucking shocked. Never in his life has he ever seen a human do anything more towards him than either cower or practically prostrate themselves in front of him; to see a human, a human that he just hurt no less, giving him a look like that...

It's deserved. Derek knows that it is, and there's no sense in arguing that. If he's going to sit here pretending like he's going to be treating humans as equals from here on out, or at the bare minimum his fucking _betrothed_ , he should start with accepting humans' emotions as entirely valid no matter how much they make Derek feel like shit. So, he collects himself, clears his throat again, and says, “I know. It was -”

“An accident,” Stiles repeats, voice void of emotion. 

This is not going well. 

Derek inches his fingers further over the leather in the space between them, skin squeaking against the fabric, and tries to meet Stiles' eyes. “Would you mind, or would you _like_ me...” he sighs, wishing he was as well-spoken as his mother for the first time in his life, “...I can take some of your pain. If you _want_.” 

Silence. Stiles staring Derek in the eyes, still, with a certain determined crease in his brow, like he's trying to figure something out. Maybe look for motive, or some possible reason that any wolf would ever offer up something like that to him. 

Either because he's in too much pain to be prideful, or because he's afraid to say no to a wolf (and Derek doesn't know which is worse), Stiles nods his head tersely once, and frowns about it. A mixed signal if Derek has ever gotten one. 

But the stench of his pain is so fucking thick in this contained space as the car drives down the highway, and they've still got two hours left until they're at that ridiculous human hospital, that Derek feels like he doesn't have much of a choice in the matter either way. He slowly, _snail_ slow, picks up his hand and moves it over to Stiles' bony wrist, hovering it in the air for a second. Waiting for Stiles to recoil or change his mind. 

When Stiles does nothing except sit there, Derek takes the leap to drop his fingers as feather-light as he can down onto his wrist and start pulling the pain out of him. 

The hurt is light, compared to others he's taken before. He once spent an afternoon with both hands on his sister when she was going into labor – this compared to that is nothing. It's like a whisper more than anything else, but he can tell it's getting the job done from the way Stiles relaxes into the touch and the bitter scent in the air considerably lessens. Neither of them say anything throughout the entire ordeal, but he catches Stiles casting anxious glances in Derek's direction more than once. 

Derek knows he's just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for Derek to turn cruel again. 

Even when that doesn't happen, and Stiles manages to arrive at the hospital in one piece with no new injuries, Derek can tell that Stiles still doesn't trust him. 

And, maybe, never will. The human he's supposed to _marry_ might never trust him. 

If his mother notices any of this, how much Stiles shies away from Derek and practically glues himself to her side as they walk into the building, she doesn't appear to care. So long as a bunch of photographers eventually get a money shot of Stiles and Derek standing together, and so long as she manages to shove a ring onto Stiles' frail finger, nothing else matters to her. 

In the waiting room, people recognize them. Of course they do. The entire Hale family, the entire Hale _pack_ , are the single most recognizable group of people in the entire state of California, and that's even including celebrities. 

They're important wolves and important members of society, they're billionaires, and people with cameras follow Derek and his sisters around nearly everywhere they go without fail. For some reason, there's something fascinating to everyone about their lives – though Derek will never be able to fucking understand that. 

There's some whispers in the lobby as they sit that Stiles obviously can't hear, but that Derek can pick up as clear as a fucking bell. A couple of women who probably are just waiting for their own human to get out of the ER for whatever reason are sitting a row or two back from them, pretending to flip through magazines but really talking to one another in hushed tones, know exactly who Stiles is. They know that he's the human Derek's set to be marrying, and they jab back and forth about how unclean Stiles looks, how his clothes are all dirty and cheap and poor, and _what does Derek see in that gross little thing, can you believe he'd even touch a human like that, I bet it's just for the papers, I bet it's just Talia trying to -_

Derek is this close to leaping up and walking over to give them a piece of his fucking mind, in spite of the fact that it would only rattle and upset Stiles in the long run, when luckily he's saved by the metaphorical bell. 

A tan human woman with curly black hair, one who had been staring at them for minutes up until this point, appears with a clipboard in lavender scrubs. She keeps looking at Stiles, again and again – enough times that Derek turns to look at Stiles himself to see what she's seeing there. 

Stiles is looking right back at her. Wide-eyed recognition. 

Talia is droning on and on about _it was an accident, completely an accident, he fell and humans are so fragile as I'm sure you know working at a place like this, right? Haha, anyway, he fell and now he probably needs a – what? Bandage?_ Derek watches this nurse and Stiles have a silent stare off for another few seconds before he puts one hand gently on Stiles' shoulder – which the nurse watches like a fucking hawk watching its prey – and leans in. 

“Do you know her?” He asks quietly. 

Stiles looks hesitant to say anything, and the nurse herself - whose name tag reads _McCall_ \- clears her throat and starts pretending to write important things down on her clipboard. Derek knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that Stiles obviously knows who this human woman is beyond just a simple patient-nurse relationship, and also knows exactly why he would be so reluctant to admit it. 

Humans aren't supposed to interact with one another. Not when they're out with the wolves. It's seen in bad taste if they're talking to each other – they're supposed to be seen and not heard, at all times. Having conversations with each other is a freedom that they're hardly ever allowed. If Stiles admits he knows her, he probably thinks that Derek will chastise him or berate him for something that fucking infantile and stupid. 

Derek decides not to press the issue. If Stiles isn't comfortable with telling Derek something, then he shouldn't have to. 

Throughout the duration of their visit, while Nurse McCall – wraps up Stiles' finger and puts a metal brace on it, Talia reiterates at least fifty times that it was, in no uncertain terms, an accident, and that Derek wasn't involved in it at all. There would be nothing worse than a scandal of human rights' activist Talia Hale's son breaking his fiancee's finger getting out there for the public, before the fucking engagement photos have even been released. 

And there's nothing, nothing at all, that Talia Hale hates more than a _scandal_. It's why Derek was hardly ever allowed to date, even as a teenager. 

Even with all this insistence from Talia, nurse McCall looks like she doesn't buy a word for it. She spends what seems like far too much time fixing up Stiles' finger, lets her hands linger on him for longer than necessary, and gives Derek as many dirty looks as he's ever gotten from any single person, much less a human. 

By the time they're finally leaving, Stiles smells upset and sad – he glances over his shoulder as they're exiting out the automatic doors into the early afternoon, stares wistfully back as Talia talks his ear off about how horrible and shocking it was inside the human hospital because they didn't even have _water fountains_. He stares, and stares, like he wants to run back inside and go back to that nurse and hide under her desk, until he sets his gaze straight forward again without a word or a telling facial expression. 

Derek knows for certain that Stiles doesn't trust him. Not enough to tell him how he knows that woman. Stiles does not like him. Stiles would much prefer to be back at that horrible orphanage where he barely got enough to eat and only had one pair of pants. 

Because, as far as Stiles is concerned, Derek is like all other wolves. 

Just another person that's going to hurt him.

\----

Derek's mother lives in the huge mansion that he grew up in – the one with terraces and an indoor pool and floor to ceiling windows and opulent family portraits hung in every possible room. When Derek moved out of that place, finally, he had never been happier. It's hard to feel at home or to truly feel like a _family_ in a house that has four separate wings that each member of the family gets to keep to themselves. It was empty, there, filled with things that little kids weren't allowed to touch or get near, and cold with marble staircases and a mother who cared far more about her public appearance as a mother than she ever did about actually _being_ a mother.

His house is much less ostentatious – but Stiles looks at it like he's just been brought to fucking Versailles. 

He shuffles inside behind Derek without a word, clutching onto the straps of his backpack tightly, and watches with moderate interest when Derek locks the door immediately behind himself – first the bolt lock, then the chain, then the bar, one after the other. When Derek turns around to look at him, he has his eyebrows raised like he's surprised or confused at the thought of a wolf being so concerned about his personal safety or well being. 

Normally, Derek doesn't give a fuck about locking his doors. With Stiles here, though, suddenly he's worried. Humans are, on some level, a liability. 

During the tour, which is minimal and consists mostly of Derek pointing into rooms and going _so there's that_ and Stiles remaining silent, obediently padding along behind Derek and gazing into each room with wide eyes, like he's never seen anything in his life like nice wooden floors and smooth counter tops. 

When they get upstairs into Derek's bedroom, Stiles blinks at the bed for a few seconds with a frown, and then heaves out a sigh that suggests resignation, but, again, he stays otherwise silent. 

Being the only one talking for so long has Derek reeling – he finally runs a hand through his hair and asks Stiles a direct question to break through the horrible one-sided conversation. “Do you like it?” 

Stiles gives him a blank look, as if Derek just asked the single most ridiculous question he's ever heard. Then, he doesn't even answer it. He just juts his chin at the bed, his jaw set tight, and asks Derek a question right back. “Am I sleeping there?” 

Derek runs a hand down one side of his face. So he wants to jump right into it, then? “I don't – have another bed...” Buying a second bed when he's supposed to be in love with the human he's moving into his house doesn't make very much sense. It would look suspicious and people would think the entire thing was just a political move for his mother – which, it is. But. No one's supposed to know that. 

There's a silence, Stiles staring at the bed like he's gauging exactly how much space there'll be in between he and Derek when he's forced to sleep there with him, and then he nods, once. Acceptance. In his eyes, there's nothing else he could say or do to get out of it. 

He's still standing there clutching onto his backpack, the stupid little bag he still hasn't let go of or taken off in the entire six hours that he's been with Derek, now; so, thinking he's being a gracious host, Derek steps forward, reaching his hand out towards it and saying, “why don't you put your stuff down?” 

Stiles steps back and wraps the fingers of his good hand so tightly around the bag you'd think it was his first born child that Derek was trying to take from him, all huge eyed with waves of anxiety rolling off of him. As soon as Stiles steps back, Derek pulls his hand away and holds it out in the air in a placating gesture, _I come in peace_ , but Stiles keeps his defensive stance for several more seconds. 

“I'm not going to take it,” Derek says carefully, and Stiles only slightly deflates, “but you should unpack. Get settled in. Okay?” 

_Settled in_. What a word choice. _Settled in_ to this foreign house with a fucking stranger he's expected to share a bed with; how could anyone settle in to that kind of a situation? Derek feels like kicking himself for a few seconds for being so obtuse. 

A moment passes, and then Stiles is slowly sliding the straps of his bag off his shoulders and depositing it on top of the bed gingerly, as if it contains fine china or other perishables. Looking at it, the thing is pathetic to begin with – hardly big enough to hold a textbook or two, let alone every single worldly possession someone might own. But the second it's on the bed, it deflates like it's not even full. 

Derek clears his throat, uncomfortable with this for some reason, and looks away briefly to walk over to his nightstand. He undoes his watch methodically to drop it into its usual spot – even though it's still early and the sun is still out, he has absolutely no plans of leaving here with Stiles tonight, not yet, and he also has no plans of leaving Stiles all alone here unprotected either – as a sign to Stiles that he should start taking his stuff out as well. 

It's only a second longer before the zipper of the ratty backpack is sliding open. Derek watches out of the corner of his eye as Stiles pulls out a single jacket, folded up carefully and reeking like Stiles so strong Derek wonders when the last time it was even washed was. He drops it onto the bed, shifting his eyes upward to glance at Derek for a moment as if making sure that's okay. 

When Derek just sits down on the edge of his side of the bed to start untying his shoes, Stiles must take that as a go ahead to keep going, because he goes on to pull out a second threadbare black t-shirt exactly like the one he has on now, a paperback book that looks like it's about to fall apart at the binding, and a metal box that rattles a bit like it's full of a couple knick knacks. And that's all. 

That's apparently all Stiles has to his name in the entire world – a jacket, two shirts, a pair of pants, a book. The thought is bizarrely infuriating for Derek, who grew up with _everything_. Everything he could've ever wanted, he got, no questions asked. 

Standing up from the bed, he walks to the closet and flicks the light on. “This is your side,” he says, pointing to the half of the closet he cleaned out for Stiles' arrival. At the moment, there's nothing but hangers there waiting to be used. “We'll have to go out and get you some more things, huh?” 

Stiles looks down at his things, and shrugs. “This is fine.” 

It's not fine. Aside from the fact that only owning one pair of pants is beyond unacceptable in Derek's rich-boy mind, there's also the bit where Stiles has to look _presentable_ to the public eye. And what he's got on – the jeans full of holes with crude magic marker illustrations drawn by five year olds and the t-shirt that looks one good wash away from falling apart – is not presentable. In any sense of the word. He looks like a homeless youth. 

In spite of the fact that he has every intention of throwing it all out the second he gets the chance, Derek slides the jacket and the t-shirt across the bed and hangs them up in the closet. They look so ridiculous hanging there across from all of Derek's freshly dry-cleaned and pressed shirts, designer suit jackets and pants, mountains of silk ties. He guesses that that's what those women at the hospital had meant about how stupid Stiles had looked sitting next to Derek; how unbelievable it was that he and Derek would ever be together like that. 

“We'll go shopping tomorrow,” he says. Stiles apparently takes this as an order, because instead of once again insisting that he's fine and doesn't want anything like he clearly wants to, he just frowns into the closet looking at this things, before sliding his eyes to Derek and nodding his understanding. 

Again. This is not going well. Time to switch gears and speak in a language that everyone, humans and wolves alike, understand perfectly. 

“You're hungry,” and it's not phrased like a question. One look at Stiles' pronounced collarbones, and Derek knows that Stiles is hungry. That he's _been_ hungry, most likely for years. As expected, Stiles perks up at the word like a dog hearing _bone_ – Derek immediately feels awful for the comparison – but doesn't say anything. Carrying the conversation is apparently something that Derek is going to have to get used to with Stiles around. At least for a while. “Let's – um – go downstairs.” 

As they go, Derek checks over his shoulder a minimum of six times to see what Stiles is doing behind him, or what his facial expression is like. Each time, Stiles is simply there, walking with a wary expression on his face that suggests he keeps waiting for something bad to happen to him here. For Derek to open up a basement door and push him down the stairs into a dungeon torture chamber. It's unsettling enough to be looked at like that, with such genuine distrust, that Derek feels like assuring Stiles the only thing he has in his basement is a chainsaw and some golf clubs...

...which he doesn't think would calm the human down. At all. Nevermind that. 

“So – I don't know what you like, but, I have -”

“I can cook,” Stiles blurts out of nowhere. Derek turns around from where he's leaning inside the fridge, tossing his head over his shoulder and frowning in the human's direction. “I – I can – you don't have to -” Abruptly, before Derek can say that he doesn't have to do anything, Stiles is standing there, less than a foot away from Derek, bending down to look into the fridge himself. 

The longer he looks, the more color drains out of his face. From the way his eyes widen as he moves them over pounds of meat and cheese and containers of yogurt, you'd think the kid was looking directly at a ghost inside of the fridge. Like Zule from Ghostbusters is waiting in there among the eggs, a ghastly voice calling out to him while the lights flicker. It's almost funny – Derek's lips quirk up at the corners, because at first, he's amused, thinking that Stiles is just flabbergasted at seeing so much food in one place, so much for him to choose from. 

Until Derek scents the air and gets the acrid taste of _fear_ in his mouth, spilling out of the pores of Stiles' skin at such an alarming rate that Derek looks back inside the fridge himself to make sure Zule really isn't in there. 

All he sees is food. But Stiles is looking at it like it's got claws to scrape across his flesh if he tries to reach out and touch it. 

“Hey,” Derek says in a quiet voice, reaching his hand out to put it on Stiles' shoulder and then thinking better of it at the last second. “What's the matter?” 

Stiles' takes one step away from the fridge, frowning down at the ground. He keeps twisting his fingers together, even the one with the metal brace wrapped around it, and he won't look Derek directly in the eyes. “I'm sorry,” he says lowly, “I don't know how to cook any of that.” 

As if he's admitting that he killed a man five years ago, Stiles says this. Like this is the single most horrible thing he's ever had to get out from between his teeth, the human _says this_. 

Derek feels like punching himself in the face for being so stupid. Of course Stiles wouldn't recognize anything like T-bone steaks or nicely packaged cheeses or yogurt cups. Last time Derek actually went through and looked in the aisle marked _HUMAN NEEDS_ in the grocery store, the one right beside all the dog toys and tropical fish, he didn't see anything even remotely bordering on actual food. 

Most places in were communities that hoard humans the way Mother Mary's did probably buy that glorified dog-food for humans in bulk, pound by pound. It comes in grotesque little packages, frozen for probably five years before getting shipped to Wal-Mart, marked with a different colored sticker for different flavors. Imitation meat – _but with all the nutrients of the real stuff! Everyone knows humans don't need actual food like us wolves, they're so weak and little, they probably couldn't chew steak meat, even if they tried!_

Stiles legitimately thought that Derek was going to pull open the fridge and take out a plastic package filled with unrecognizable gruel to dump into a pan and heat up. That's what Mary had meant about Stiles being able to cook, back at the orphanage. 

A lot of thoughts are going through Derek's head right now. Chiefly, that he can't believe Stiles has lived off of nothing but fake food for God only knows how long, followed up by the fact that he can't believe the human actually thought Derek would have any of that trash inside of his fridge, and finally, the fact that Stiles – for whatever reason – thinks he has to cook? 

Trying not to let the palpable horror seep into his voice, Derek shrugs his shoulders as innocently and nonchalantly as possible. “I do. When's the last time -”

“I can do other things,” another outburst, this one slightly louder, more hysterical. Derek turns away from the fridge again, feeling like he's in an episode of the Twilight Zone, and watches as Stiles fidgets with his fingers some more, still refusing to look directly at Derek. “I can clean. I can do the dishes, I – I can do laundry and wash your car or -” he trails off, voice cracking. He looks like he's a half-step away from launching into a full-blown attack; which is the most emotion Derek's gotten out of him since he broke the kid's finger this morning. 

Derek's not an idiot. Although, maybe he is, for not having seen this coming sooner. 

Stiles is worried that Derek will find Stiles useless. If he can't cook, and he can't clean, and he can't do this or that or the other thing for Derek, if he can't be the perfect subservient little human that does every thing he's asked and told to, then what's the point of him? Derek will trade him in for another one, go to another orphanage and scoop up some other petrified teenager who actually knows how to sear a steak. And Stiles will wind up thrown away some place else - some place worse. Much worse. 

“Okay,” Derek shuts the fridge door maybe a little too hard, and Stiles jumps, entire face twitching like he's expecting a slap to the face. “We need to a have a conversation – come on.” 

With one hand, as gently as he can manage, Derek steers Stiles and his quaking limbs over to a stool in front of the kitchen island. Even being careful and cautious, Stiles stumbles a little bit underneath Derek's push, moving too easily along with it – just how fucking weak are they breeding humans these days? How _easy_ would it be for Derek to literally rip this poor kid to pieces with his bare hands, if he felt like it? 

Christ. And wolves wonder why the population of humans in their communities is dwindling so much – why underground human traffickers keep having to steal humans out of their own homes from their sanctuaries. If it's that easy to kill them off, then Derek doesn't doubt that's exactly what some weres do with them. 

Once Stiles is perched on top of a stool, hunched over the counter top and side-eyeing Derek, Derek leans his elbows down on the granite across from him and tries to catch his eyes. “Stiles,” as soon as he's addressed, Stiles looks up with an expression one would expect to find on an inmate about to receive the lethal injection. “What exactly were you told about why my mother picked you?” 

Stiles glances back down at the counter. “Just that a were wanted to...mate me.” 

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” Derek bursts out, palming his forehead. “That's not – _no_.” 

Mating and getting married are, actually, two completely different fucking things. Mating with a human means holding one of them down – nine times out of ten completely against their will – snapping teeth into their frail necks until blood runs down their skin, and forcing them to take a knot. Afterwards, like all the books and human-abusers out there in the world will tell you, a human has no choice but to cater to a wolf's every whim and wish, and _happily_ , at that. 

Derek has known, and always known, that _that_ is the biggest load of horseshit wolves have ever come up with. Humans don't even know what mating means. When two wolves mate, both of them feel it, that they're bound together now, forever. It's fucking sacred in a lot of ways. Humans just don't get that feeling – all they know when a wolf mates them is that they've been bitten, clawed, and raped by a creature twenty times as strong as they are – so yeah. Probably after that fucking experience, they do whatever that wolf tells them to out of fear for their own lives. 

“I'm not going to mate you, Stiles,” it is very, very pivotal hat Derek drives this idea home. If Stiles is going to be in this house thinking he's going to practically be assaulted every single day, then that's a fucking problem. “That is not going to happen. Do you understand?” 

Stiles looks like he doesn't know what to say, eyes wide and blinking. It almost reminds Derek of the expression children get on their faces when they're told they'll get candy if they behave the right way. 

“I need you to tell me out loud that you understand that,” Derek pushes. “Under no circumstances am I going to do anything you don't want me to do, or make you do anything that you don't want to do - is that clear?” 

As expected, Stiles looks dubious. With good reason – he's most likely spent his entire time with whatever other owners he's had, including the orphanage, having the idea drilled into his head that the second he turns eighteen, some wolf is going to swoop in and take him away to be mated. He's spent most of his life just waiting around to be nothing more than a werewolf's chew toy, used until there's nothing left to use anymore. That being said, the idea of a werewolf not wanting to brutalize and torment him must be as foreign a fucking concept as pigs flying. 

“I understand,” Stiles says, but Derek hears the uptick of a lie in his heartbeat. Mostly for his own sanity, Derek tells himself that it doesn't matter, not right now. Stiles is traumatized and brainwashed and he just needs some time to realize that Derek's not going to do anything horrific to him. Eventually he'll be convinced – maybe in days or weeks. 

“You need to get that _this_ ,” he motions in between himself and Stiles, “isn't a fucking – it's not – you're not my pet.” The fact that Stiles doesn't even blink at the word suggests that he's been called as such before. “You're my _fiancee_. Okay? My equal.” 

Even if Stiles doesn't say or do anything other than to blink placidly in Derek's direction, he can see clear as fucking day the thoughts that are going through his head. _Why would you want to marry a weak, stupid human that you've never even met before today?_

“I didn't choose this,” for some reason this sounded like a good thing to say inside his head, but the second it's out, he winces. “I mean – I'm glad you're here, and you seem – you're -” why not just fucking pick up a shovel and dig himself even deeper into this pit? “...the point I'm trying to get at here is that this is entirely my mother's idea. I didn't just pick some random human out of a catalog, all right?” 

Stiles squints his eyes like this is the single stupidest thing he's ever heard, but doesn't make a comment. 

“I cannot believe you weren't told all this beforehand,” Derek whines as he runs his hands up and down his face again and again as he tries to think of a way to condense this entire shitshow, put it into words that the human will be able to understand. “My mother arranged this entire thing. She thinks of herself as a real _human rights_ activist,” Stiles makes a face, “and if her son were to fall in love with and marry a human, it would make her look good. Authentic. It wouldn't look good if her son took a teenager and forced him into a mating bite – understand?” 

“Yeah,” Stiles says slowly, in a way that makes it pretty clear that he doesn't, not at all. 

“It's an arranged marriage – completely and totally political and fake. Like, _not real_. The only part that's real is the part where I don't expect you to be my fucking servant. We're in this together. Okay?” 

Stiles looks away from Derek, towards the window. Outside, an expensive car passes every few seconds down the residential street, and the window blows the leaves of the huge tree in Derek's yard around and around in the air. Stiles has no discernible expression on his face, other than a slight downward curve of his lips – one that hasn't really gone away since the two of them first met. 

“That means you don't have to clean up after me,” Derek explains deeper, sensing Stiles' disbelief in the air. “Or cook for me, or do anything for me. You can sit on the couch all day for all I care.” He takes his elbows off the countertop and rounds the island, moving back towards with the fridge with a heaving sigh. Stiles still doesn't fucking believe him, still smells like anxiety and nerves, just waiting for something to go wrong here and for Derek to show his true self. “I'm going to cook the steaks, now,” he says matter of factly, pulling the meat out of the fridge and dumping it onto the counter. “You can have some if you _want_.”

A beat of silence passes as Derek unwraps the meat – Stiles hasn't even moved from his spot on the stool except to turn around and follow Derek with his suspicious eyes. 

“You probably should eat some even if you don't want,” Derek decides resolutely. “You look like you weigh about ten pounds wet.”

At this, Stiles glances down at himself quizzically. Does he really not know how fucking _tiny_ he is, in comparison to Derek and all other weres? He's just the right size to be tossed around like an oversized rag doll, which is exactly how human breeders like them. “I'll eat,” he says quietly. “Thank you, Mr. Hale.” 

“Derek,” he corrects out of habit. He's more than used to people trying to call him Mr. Hale like he's a hotshot businessman, when really all he's ever done is trail along behind his mother and get really drunk at public parties. “Equals, remember?”

Stiles apparently doesn't remember how a knife works. 

As soon as he has a plate of meat and potatoes in front of him, he picks up his fork and wields it the way any normal person would – but the _knife_. 

The knife, he picks up awkwardly, hesitantly, and inspects. He turns it this way and that in the air, frowning like he's scrutinizing a difficult math problem, and then – in one of the most incredible displays Derek has ever seen in his life – he stabs the thing directly into his meat like he's killing a cow in the wild. And he does it _hard_ – their glasses of water rattle and clink at the force. 

He's gone and killed his already cooked steak, Derek thinks as he presses the back of his hand to his lips so Stiles won't see him laughing at the sight of a knife sticking straight out of a slab of meat. Stiles, completely oblivious to Derek about to have a laughing fit over this, grips the handle of the knife and picks the steak up, like some kind of lollipop or corndog. Then, he leans forward, and rips a bite off with his teeth, almost animalistically. It's the most insane thing Derek's ever seen in his fucking life.

Stiles hasn't used a knife. Ever. That's clear to Derek, now. With the gruel he was served at Mother Mary's that makes sense; most likely, the only utensil he's ever used is a spoon (or maybe even just his own hands), but Derek really has to wonder what kind of food they get out in the sanctuaries. Maybe they don't get meat out there and just live off fruits and vegetables. Derek likes to imagine the Garden of Eden when the thinks about the human sanctuaries, but, in reality, they're probably nothing like that. They might not even be better than human rescues out in wolf country are.

“Okay,” he interrupts as Stiles is leaning in to chew off another bite of meat. “Let me – just -” gently, he takes the handle of the knife and uses it to flop the meat back down onto Stiles' plate. Bewildered, Stiles looks like he's just gotten a toy taken away, giving Derek a confused look like _what happened to us being equals what are you doing with my food I'm hungry_ , and Derek bites back another laugh at the expression alone. “You cut it. Like this.” 

Derek demonstrates, leaning his arms over to cut three bite sized bits of meat for Stiles to eat. 

Stiles watches this with about as much interest as paint drying. As soon as Derek hands the knife and fork back to Stiles, the teenager snatches them away, and jabs the knife right back into the center of the meat. Before picking it up, he gives Derek a really, really interesting glare. 

It's almost like a challenge. An attempt at baiting Derek into going back on what he just said half an hour ago, about how Stiles can do whatever he wants and he's Derek's equal. As Derek's equal, shouldn't he be allowed to eat steak like a cave man if he feels like it? 

Derek feels like this is probably as much progress as he's likely to make tonight with convincing Stiles that Derek doesn't have any plans of treating him the way other wolves have, as he watches Stiles pick the meat up just like he did the first time and snap his teeth into it with a tearing noise. After each bite he takes this way, he looks at Derek for long moments, like he's waiting. For claws across his face, or chastisement for disobedience, or _something_. 

When nothing comes, he takes another bite, and almost smirks to himself, like he's won an argument, somehow. 

Throughout the entirety of the dinner, he eats that steak like it's the single most incredible thing he's ever put in his mouth, paying absolutely no mind to the juice dribbling down his chin other than to swipe the back of his hand across his face every couple of minutes, ignoring Derek like he isn't even there at all. It's fucking barbaric. Derek has to physically force himself to not burst out into a laugh every time he watches Stiles rip chunks of meat off with his teeth or smashes his fork into the boiled potatoes like squishing bugs. 

It's only six o'clock by the time dinner's done with, the summer sun still in the sky, but Derek doesn't know what else to do with the human. He could set Stiles up in front of the television with Netflix or hand him a book, but from the way that Stiles keeps rubbing at his eyes and huffing out sighs, Derek thinks that it's time he went to bed. This is most likely the busiest day he's had in a long, long time. 

He tries to offer the option of sleep to him instead of just saying _time for bed!_ But Stiles looks at him with that same look he gives Derek every time he tries to make a _suggestion_ – like he has no choice or say in it either way. 

Derek hands Stiles one of his own sleep shirts and a pair of pajama pants, says that they'll get him some of his own tomorrow when they go out, and Stiles doesn't say anything. Without a pause, except for maybe a suspicious glance in Derek's direction, Stiles rips his shirt up and over his head, and hands it to Derek expectantly. 

It takes Derek a second for his mind to catch up to this, because the second that shirt is off and Stiles' bare chest and back are both out on display, he's just a bit distracted by the _marks_ all over him. 

He knew that he had been other places beside the orphanage from his papers, but he hadn't thought about the fact that some of those wolves might've marked him in the cruel ways that they've come up with. Seeing it like this, up close and so casually, Derek almost feels like dry-heaving. 

There's a huge tattoo on his back. It's not nearly as bad as other ones he's seen – some wolves like to think of themselves as artists that can tattoo anything they feel like, and the results are fucking atrocious every time (he one time saw a stick figure drawing in a human's skin, like some wolf let their kids tattoo a human being as a fun game for them) – but this is at least well done, like an actual artist created it. It's a tiger, it looks like, as cheesy as that is, prowling forwards like it could leap up off the human's skin at any second to tear someone's throat out. 

Near his hip, there's what looks like a barcode in black ink etched into his skin. His upper arm has a series of strange letters and numbers, his lower back splashed with raised scars that read the address for _Mother Mary's Human Rescue_ , like someone took a knife and carved it in crudely. 

Derek swallows, takes the shirt. Doesn't comment on it as he walks over and dumps it into the hamper across the room. What could he possibly say? _Gee, sorry other wolves have mutilated you, man._ Jesus Christ. 

At least there aren't any claw scars or bite marks on him anywhere, Derek placates himself as he listens to the scrape of clothing while Stiles dresses in the pajamas. At _least_ there's that. Other humans he's encountered have been absolutely littered with gouges and teeth marks. In some ways, Stiles is probably lucky. 

As lucky as any human can be among wolves. 

Stiles inches inside the bed bit by bit, sinking underneath the covers as far to his end as he can physically get without toppling over the edge. Derek observes this and feels like he maybe should've just splurged and bought a second bed, and fuck what people would think about it – how must it feel to be a teenage human being made to share a bed with an adult werewolf? Horrible, most likely. Scary. It's like all that bravery from dinner, with the steak, has washed clean out of him, and he doesn't have that fire inside of him to be disobedient anymore. 

When Derek climbs in beside him with a book and stretches out comfortably, Stiles shrinks back even farther, pressing deeply into his pillow and pulling the covers up high, right on top of his chin. As if he half expects Derek to climb on top of him here and now. 

The best thing to do is to act like he doesn't notice the way he's acting at all, Derek reasons, opening up his book without even a glance in Stiles' direction. Minutes pass this way; Stiles keeps his defensive pose, rigid and silent, and Derek reads. It's moderately hard to focus with a human this close to him, smelling like _weak_ and _Stiles_ , and Derek has to keep re-reading paragraphs again and again to try and get back into the story. It doesn't really work. 

After maybe half an hour, Stiles starts relaxing bit by bit. His shoulders slump down. He unfurls his fingers from their death grip on the covers. He worms around a little like he's getting comfortable. Half an hour after that, his breathing evens out, body going slack with sleep, and Derek finally puts his book down into his lap. 

And stares. Derek would never do this to Stiles while he was awake, out of respect for the fact that it would creep the everliving hell out of him, but while he's sleeping, Derek can't really help himself. 

Stiles is skinny, and small, like all humans are – but he has this way about him, in his long fingers and lanky limbs, that suggests if he hadn't been born a human, if he hadn't been genetically altered at some stage in his process, then he would've been taller. Broader. Stronger, maybe. If he had been given a proper diet, maybe he'd have been able to get some muscle mass on him somewhere along the line. As it is, the only word Derek can think to come up with to describe him in all his entirety is _pathetic_. Freckles and moles that have probably fascinated every werewolf he's ever come into contact with dot across his face, his skin looks baby soft to the touch and has probably been stroked and prodded by _someone_ , his features are light and smooth instead of harsh and brash like a wolf's would be – he's wolf bait. 

It might even be half the reason that he was scooped out of the human sanctuary; him, in specific, out of the thousands of other kids just like him that probably mill around in there. He looks like a werewolf's wet fucking dream. 

It's definitely the reason his mother chose him. Derek still remembers when she fished a picture of him out of his folder and waved it in the air in front of Derek's face triumphantly, like _look what I found for you, isn't he precious?_

He _is_ , is the thing. 

But instead of feeling like he's lucky, or like he won some kind of prize, beat out all the other wolves who might've been gunning to get their hands on him by his eighteenth birthday, he feels like a monster. An innocent, fragile, attractive human kid got ripped away from his family and wound up inside of Derek's claws; what's there to feel _good_ about? 

The following morning, Derek tries putting Stiles in some of his own jeans and shirts, but the kid looks absolutely fucking ridiculous. The jeans keep sliding down way too low on his hips, even with a belt, the bottoms of them stretching out over his feet like he's wearing balloon pants. The shirt he swims in, the hem reaching all the way down his mid thigh. When Derek looks at him after he's been dressed like that, it's all he can do to sigh and run a hand through his hair. He looks like a little kid playing dress up with his father's clothes. 

Back into his own ratty jeans and horrible t-shirt he goes, looking much happier for it, honestly. Derek, on the other hand, isn't very happy about it at all. 

Dragging Stiles into the human hospital without being scent-marked by Derek was one thing. But bringing him out into the general public, into a store that will be absolutely fucking crawling with nearly nothing but werewolves – not scent-marking him just isn't an option. If he manages to weasel his way out of Derek's sight for even a second, and he seems cunning enough to try to do something that stupid, then any wolf who spots an unmarked human will pounce on him in a second and either pet him like a little dog and coo at him for a few minutes, or try to steal him away into their van parked out back. Both options are abhorrent to Derek.

He tries to ease Stiles into the idea, feeding him a bowl of extra-sugary oatmeal and awkwardly hovering around him for a few minutes, trying to figure out a good way to ask him without it sounding all perverted and gross, or like an ownership thing. If Derek's supposed to be here trying to convince Stiles that he doesn't own him, how is he supposed to ask the human to let Derek mark him in any way, shape or form without coming across like a hypocrite?

It's in the middle of this debate, while Derek inches his legs marginally closer to Stiles' underneath the table every couple of seconds, that Stiles finally drops his spoon into his empty bowl and glowers in Derek's direction. “I know what you're doing.” 

Derek sputters for a moment, trying to back peddle, ripping his legs as far away from Stiles and back over to his side of the table as he can, but the damage has been done. He's been found out. Stiles isn't a fucking idiot. 

“I get how it works,” Stiles continues with a dejected tone to his voice, “go on and do it. I don't care.” There's a particular set to his jaw, however, that suggests he does care. And cares a lot. 

The problem is, in this particular case, Derek can't let it slide. He can't, absolutely and physically cannot, take Stiles out without marking him first. It's just not a fucking option. It's for Stiles' own good and safety. 

So, even though Stiles looks like he'd rather be eaten alive by the tiger on his back, Derek reaches across the table and presses his fingers as feather light as possible into Stiles' neck. Stiles swallows around the fingers, casting his eyes down to the ground and looking like a kicked dog backed into a corner, for all intents and purposes. It's horrible, but Derek presses his fingers in deeper and _rubs_ , pushing his scent as deeply into that frail skin as he can get it without hurting him. 

It's not as much as Derek would like to do, not even close to what his wolf wants him to do, but it'll keep the other wolves at bay. And that's all Derek should care about. Right? 

As soon as it's good enough and not a second over, he pulls his hand away and leaves Stiles be. 

In the car, Stiles sits in the passenger seat and glares out the window, looking at all the wolves walking down the sidewalks and the businesses – Derek knows this is a rare sight, for him. In the sanctuaries, though Derek knows very little about what they're really like, he figures they're nothing like this. They're not government run (or they're not _supposed_ to be), so there's nothing official there. There's nothing like, say, a fucking Wal-Mart in the sanctuaries. Derek imagines they all live out of huts and pick berries for their livelihood. On top of that, Stiles probably very, very rarely left the orphanage to go into a city unless it was for emergencies. 

So everything is a novel sight to him, and he drinks it all in with an expression like he wishes he could be nonchalant and disinterested, but can't force himself to be disillusioned with it. 

Derek knows that Stiles more likely than not, on some level, despises werewolf culture. It symbolizes everything that's ever been taken away from him. Everything he's ever lost (and that list must be very, very long for a human at age seventeen.) He probably wishes more than anything that he could just hate every single thing he sees mercilessly. But he can't. He wants to go inside and blend in and be like everyone else. All humans do. 

Stiles hops out of the car in the parking lot of Wal-Mart and then immediately plasters himself as close to Derek's side as he feels comfortable getting; and then stays there as they walk inside, eyeing every wolf that even glances at him warily like he's waiting for them to try and grab him. Derek feels simultaneously horrible for him and also somewhat triumphant – that he's managed to gain enough of Stiles' trust in two days that he at least thinks him better than any other strange wolf out there. It's selfish to think; how great it is that Stiles is afraid of everyone else but not him. 

But it's really all he's got at the moment, so he clings to it like a lifeline. 

When Derek tells him to pick some clothes out for himself, Stiles grabs the most bizarre hodgepodge of items that Derek has ever seen in his life – a hideous yellow and black plaid _thing_ , a shirt so red it nearly makes Derek's retinas bleed, and a single pair of jeans. If Talia were here – well. If Talia were involved in this at all, they wouldn't be at Wal-Mart. They'd be in some department store, and Stiles would be standing there being measured by strange people to get fitted for some ridiculous suit. Eventually, Talia's going to force him to do just that. Derek thought it would be best to slowly acclimate Stiles to the idea of shopping at all, starting with the most basic of all places. 

Derek never wants to see that red shirt again, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Stiles he _can't have_ anything (which might become a problem in the future) – so he purses his lips at it but lets Stiles drop it into the cart anyway. Then, he forces Stiles to get five more pairs of jeans and a handful of normal, non-retina-destroying shirts. Good enough for now, Derek thinks. 

When they're walking past the entertainment section, with the pitiful selection of books that a place like Wal-Mart has to offer, Stiles stares wistfully down the aisle and starts fidgeting his fingers again – like he desperately wants to run down the aisle scraping his fingers along every single book in sight. 

Derek stops, juts his chin in the direction the shelves. “Do you want some?” 

Stiles looks at him like he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar – starts fidgeting even harder. Derek wonders if that's a nervous tick he picked up, or something just _human_ , or something else altogether. “No.” His heart skips a beat. 

_You know, I can hear when you lie_ would probably petrify the literal shit out of him, so Derek just gives him a look before shoving his cart down the aisle and motioning for Stiles to follow him. “You can get anything you want. I want you to.” 

Stiles follows along, chewing on his bottom lip with such ferocity it looks like it should start bleeding any second now. His eyes zero in on the young adult books with all the colorful covers; when's the last time he saw a new book? The one he brought along with him in his backpack looked like it came from the 1800's, for fuck's sake. These are all fresh, with bindings that crack when you open them – Stiles hesitantly reaches out to touch one, side-eyeing Derek like he expects the wolf to snap at him for this, before taking it into his hand and scanning the back cover. 

“Your file said you like to read,” Derek says. It's his first attempt at actual small talk. 

Surprisingly, Stiles doesn't recoil away from him or tell him to shut the fuck up. He just raises his eyes, meets Derek's, and then looks back down at the book. “Never had very many books, but. Yeah.” 

Derek latches onto this tiny piece of information like a raft after a shipwreck. “You can have as many as you want now. I have my own collection too, and you can – you can read all of those.” 

Stiles looks up at him, and then slowly holds the book out. “All right,” he agrees. And then, quieter, “thanks.” 

“No problem,” it comes out too quickly, too enthusiastically – he tears the book out of Stiles' hands and drops it into the cart. 

He's about to tell Stiles he can get another, when a voice calls his name from the end of the aisle, followed by the distinct sound of high heels clacking on the tiled floor in their direction. On instinct, half-expecting it to be a fan or some other stranger, Derek curls his hand protectively around the back of Stiles' neck as the heels click closer, careful to be as gentle with his touch as physically possible. 

When he turns around and sees Kate fucking Argent sweeping towards him with a mocking grin on her face, Derek wraps his other hand around Stiles' shoulder and tugs him directly beside him, ignoring the squawk of protest and flailing arms. Within seconds, though, he wishes he hadn't gone and done that – all he's really done is call even more of Kate's awful fucking attention to the human.

She zeroes in on him like a cat spotting a mouse it wants to chase, and a feral grin spreads over her lips, growing wider with each step she takes closer to them. 

The pleasantries are over, then, before they ever even began, and it's like Derek isn't even there. “Oh!” She squeaks, putting her hand over her heart like she's looking at a bunny rabbit in a cage. “This must be the little human you've taken in!” _Taken in_. Right. Kate keeps up with the gossip columns at the same rate as addicts huff wolfsbane – there's no way in Hell she doesn't know exactly what this human is to Derek – or at the very least what TMZ _says_ Stiles is to him. 

She fits her chilly eyes onto Derek, and says, “what's his name?” Like Stiles doesn't have any ability to talk, or like she doesn't care whether or not he can. 

Derek doesn't waste any time humoring her. He looks at Stiles and gently nudges him in the side, prompting him to speak up. For a second, Stiles looks befuddled – but then he swallows, and says, looking Kate in the eyes for only a second, “I'm Stiles.” 

Kate beams at him like he's just done a cute little trick, leaning forwards slightly to leer just a bit more closely. “Oh, my God. He is the most _adorable_ thing I've ever seen. Where did you get him?” 

“He's lived in an orphanage,” Derek as good as spits this in her direction. 

An exaggerated pout makes its way across her features. “Aw...a _rescue_.” 

The Argent family are pretty much exactly like the Hales – well known, important, rich, etcetera. The main difference between them is that they are on absolute opposite ends of the political spectrum regarding most things, especially on human rights. Of course. They, and Kate in particular, believe that weres are only doing the right thing by looking out for humans. That they're not “surviving” out in the sanctuaries and they need the wolves in order to keep the populations steady, to keep them from dying out altogether. Without wolves breeding them in factories like animals and selling them off to the highest bidder, they'd all be gone within a matter of months. 

Tearing children away from their families is justified, in Kate's mind. So long as wolves get to keep control over the humans, she could care less what really happens to them. 

Stiles must be able to innately sense that Kate is not a good person – or, maybe, he's seen her on TV before – because he leans a bit closer against Derek's side, giving her a blank stare. 

“Yeah. After the feds came in and took him from his family, they just dumped him there.” 

Kate makes a sad noise in the back of her throat, shaking her head. “All those homes are privatized – they don't receive funding. It's so horrible.” If she had her way, the government would be pumping thousands of dollars into building huge warehouses full of human children, watched over either by the Argents directly or a team of their minions. God only fucking knows what would happen to them in there. “Poor thing.” 

Before Derek can stop her, she's reaching her hand out and scratching at Stiles' hair with her long nails. Stiles stands there, stock still and rigid, hands bunching into fists at his sides while Kate coos at him. 

Derek doesn't particularly feel like creating a huge fucking scene in a public place, especially since that's exactly what Kate's probably getting at by doing this. He can deal with Kate scritching behind Stiles' ears for two seconds, setting his jaw tight. 

But he hears her utter the words _good boy_ and _that_. Fucking. Does it. 

Derek tugs Stiles behind his body and away from Kate's hand, growling and snapping his teeth once in her direction in a clear threat. 

Startled, Kate takes a step back with her hands up in a placating gesture – but within moments, she's smirking in satisfaction. She knows what kind of lines she was crossing with that shit. 

“He's not a pet,” Derek hisses – he feels Stiles' fingers curl into the hem of his t-shirt, as though he's half afraid Kate will try to take him away. It's not an unfounded fear. “He's my fiancee. I expect you and everyone else to treat him as such.” 

All the fake-pleasant, saccharine sweetness from before is completely drained out of Kate's face in an instant. She gives Stiles a menacing leer, before fixing her eyes back onto Derek. “ _Fiancee_? Oh Derek.” She snickers, a cruel, mocking thing. “Don't be ridiculous. Don't tell me your sympathy for the things has you _this_ delusional!” 

Derek grits his teeth. “He's not a _thing_ , either.” 

“You know,” she continues on like he hasn't spoken, “treating them like normal people isn't good for them. They get ideas,” she waves her hand in the air, like any ideas a human could get would be ludicrous anyway, “if you make them think too hard, the poor things get overwhelmed.” Another glance in Stiles' direction – at this point, the human's fingers are digging into the skin around Derek's lower back, and it doesn't smell like _fear_ that's coming off of Stiles' body in waves.

It's anger. Hot, thick and heavy. Unlike the pain from yesterday, this smells sour; rotten milk, moldy peaches. 

“They're as good as puppies,” she says with a condescending smile for Stiles. “You can't _marry_ your toys, no matter how much you like to play with them, Derek. They just don't understand what that even means. You think animals can _love_?” 

“I _understand_ ,” Stiles' voice pipes up – Derek glances away from Kate to find him back beside Derek instead of behind him, glaring in Kate's direction. “...just like I understand that you and your family are the reason I'm even _here_ to begin with.” 

Derek is moderately surprised by this outburst, but it's nothing compared to the way that Kate is looking at him – like there's nothing she'd like more than to grab him and lock him up in a cage somewhere as punishment for talking back to her. Figuring she can't get away with that, she looks at Derek expectantly. Waiting for him to shush Stiles, smack him upside the back of his side, drag him by his ear out of the store shouting something about _no supper_. 

Derek just stands there, raises his eyebrows at Stiles, and smirks. 

With as much conviction as Derek has ever seen from a human, Stiles sneers at her, upper lip curling in disgust, and hisses, “ _fuck_ you.” 

Derek nearly cackles in Kate's face, but settles for laughing quietly and patting Stiles on the back like _that'll do, pig. That'll do_. 

Kate is stunned silent for all of two more seconds, lips parted and brow furrowed, before she collects herself. That same defensive expression creeping back onto her face, and she bends down to meet Stiles at his eye level. Stiles barely flinches. “Aaww,” she mocks right into Stiles' face, “if you were mine, I'd lock you up in the basement until you remembered your manners.” 

When Derek puts his hand on Stiles' shoulder to pull him away from her again, his entire body is shaking. Whether in anger or fear, it's not clear anymore – more likely than not, it's a deadly cocktail of the both of them. “Well,” Derek says, “it's a good thing he's _nobody's_. I'll be sure to send you an invite to our _big day_ , Kate.”

Out in the car, all the bags loaded into the backseat, Stiles is still shaking. He hasn't stopped, not even for a second. He curls and uncurls his fingers on top of his knees, staring down into his lap with wide, unseeing eyes, like he's going somewhere else inside his own head. Somewhere else might be best for him, right now. Someplace where people like Kate don't exist. 

“I'm sorry about that,” Derek says as earnestly as possible. “That must've been – um – upsetting...” Being treated like a stupid animal in public where anyone could see? Yeah. _Upsetting_ is one word for it. “Kate is just...” 

Cruel. Kate is just _cruel_. 

She might not beat her humans, or violate them, and she might dress them all up in nice clothes and take them out to show them off. But benevolence and real _kindness_ just aren't the same things, not where the humans are concerned. She treats them like her little dolls that she gets to dress up, or puppies to train. Not real people.

And it's just simply cruel to take a person and make them a _thing_. No matter how sweetly she might do it. 

“I've seen her on television,” Stiles says in a low voice, starting to fidget again. Then he, too, knows exactly what she's like. He's probably seen her humans all lined up behind her during her public addresses; standing there in pretty dresses and nice suits, dead-eyed stares on their faces, _ARGENT_ stamped visibly across their necks in bright red ink. 

Derek starts the car, puts it in drive – and then slams back into park within seconds, stomping on the brake and twisting around to face Stiles' direction. “You know I don't think that,” he says quickly, almost desperately. Stiles frowns. “That is the _opposite_ of what me and my mother feel towards humans. You get that, don't you? That's what this,” he gestures in between he and Stiles, “is about. Trying to set an example that humans are as good as wolves. Okay?” 

Stiles doesn't say anything, and he doesn't have to. Derek can tell what Stiles thinks about that written all over his face. 

If Derek and Talia really gave a shit about making humans equal to weres, then they wouldn't have paid to drag Stiles out of the orphanage. They wouldn't be forcing him into a marriage without even asking him first, they wouldn't be parading him around in were-culture like some trophy or emblem of a movement that he doesn't want any part in. 

If they really cared, they'd have taken him back to his family. Wherever they are. It wouldn't be hard to find them – it wouldn't be hard at all for Derek to look at Stiles' papers, whichever sanctuary he was dragged out of, and take him home. It would be so easy. 

But Derek can't do that. It's not his call to make. In a way, it's so fucking twisted that Derek can even live with himself; it's so hypocritical for him to sit here pretending like he's so different from Kate Argent, so much better. 

When really, he's just the lesser of two evils, in Stiles' mind. 

“Look, Stiles,” Derek begins, running his hands down the front of his jeans out of nervous habit, “I know that this isn't exactly – an ideal situation. I know that you don't want to be here and if you had your way you – wouldn't be.” 

Stiles snorts to himself, a smile creeping across his lips, and Derek can almost hear what it is that he's not saying, and won't say. If he had his way, he'd be nowhere near Derek or any other wolves. If he had his way, he never would've wound up in the world of wolves to begin with and would be far far away from any wolves who would try to take his life away from him like this. 

“...but I don't want you to think about this like a me versus you kind of thing. Or like I'm the enemy, or that I'm not at least your friend in all -”

“You're not my friend.” Stiles cuts him off in a harsh tone of voice. Not quite with the same amount of venom he shot out at Kate, but close. 

Derek blinks at him, mouth hanging open until he snaps it shut with a click of his teeth. 

Unperturbed, Stiles continues on without looking in his direction. “You paid for me. Didn't you?” 

A beat of silence. “My mother did.” It feels dirty, somehow, to admit this out loud. That Stiles was listed on some website the same way that Ikea couches are, just another thing to be inspected with customer reviews and a price listed underneath his picture, when he's not even eighteen yet. “But I don't think of you like -”

“Oh, great,” Stiles hisses sarcastically, crossing his arms over his chest and finally chancing a glance in Derek's direction. “ _You_ don't think of me like that. How nice for you. It doesn't matter what you think, either way – I'm your property.” 

The word is like a slap in the face. It's enough that Derek actually flinches. “Stiles...don't be like that. There is so much more to this situation than just the money.” 

“I understand the situation,” Stiles snaps with an air of defensiveness; probably from years of being treated like some stupid airheaded idiot by the wolves. “You need some pathetic little human with a sad backstory to sell your mother's campaign for human rights as believable.” 

“I -”

“You as good as paid a whore, _Mr. Hale_.” The official title, so proper and a grim reminder of what their roles are in this relationship, how anyone else would see Derek as the boss and Stiles as his certifiable pet. “Don't insult me by acting like I don't understand exactly what this is.” 

Derek is winded by this entire conversation. By Stiles' attitude, and most of all by the look that Stiles is giving him. Something crossed between hatred and fear, as if Stiles honestly expects Derek to reach over and backhand him across the face for speaking out of turn, but not caring either way. Like he's just used to that kind of thing, by now, but refuses to shut his mouth for his own good. The only thing he can think to say is a rusty, “call me Derek,” in a low voice. 

“Derek,” Stiles repeats tonelessly. “Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. But don't act like we're _friends_.” 

Silence. Deafening inside of the car, and Stiles starts crying. 

Wolves, generally speaking, don't really cry. They can, but it's kind of stereotyped that humans are the real cry-babies – so when a wolf cries, they usually get mocked mercilessly for it. All wolves are expected to hold it in, less they get called human. And, God knows, there's nothing more shameful than being a _human_. The smell is foreign enough to Derek that he scrunches his nose against it, remembering yesterday when Stiles had cried for a while about his broken finger. 

“Don't _cry_ ,” it comes out a lot harsher than Derek intends it to, “you're just upset over what Kate said. All that is just her talking, you know?”

Stiles swipes the back of his hand across his eyes and huffs. “People think that way.” 

“ _I_ don't – who cares what anyone else thinks?” 

“Don't fucking talk like you're so much better -”

“I get that you're angry,” Derek cuts him off, “and you have every right to be. But I'm telling you I'm not going to force a power dynamic into our – whatever.” Calling it a _relationship_ feels too strong for what they really are. “You and I are on the same level. I need you to _get_ that.” 

“Same level,” Stiles repeats sarcastically, shaking his head. “ I don't care. I hate you. I want to go _home_.” 

Derek closes his eyes, presses his forehead into the steering wheel. That's just about the last thing he ever wanted Stiles to say – because he knows that he deserves to say it, and he even more deserves someone to listen to him, and to drive him home. Derek knows that. 

But he can't. He just _can't_.

\----

“He's looking better already!” Talia shouts at them from across her desk, leaning over it to scan her eyes up and down Stiles' form where he's sitting awkwardly in the seat right next to Derek's.

Stiles looks like he's been showering regularly, getting actual food in his system, and wearing half decent clothes. The past few days have been – in a word – bleak. Stiles might not shrink away from Derek's touch, or look at him like he's waiting for an attack, but he barely speaks. He holes himself up in Derek's room for hours at a time reading (and rereading) his new book; which he hides underneath the pillow on his side of the bed like he expects Derek to try and take it away from him at any second. While Derek sits down on the living room couch watching television and waiting for Stiles to emerge. He nearly never does, until he's called for lunch or dinner. Even then, he sits at the table and eats in near-silence.

Derek tries to start conversations with him (what's that book of yours about? How many times have you read it now? Do you want a new one?) and Stiles answers him in three words or less every time. The fact that they're supposed to pretend to be in love with each other makes the situation even worse. How is anyone going to buy them as an honest to god couple that's going to be walking down the aisle in three months if Stiles won't even talk to him? Barely fucking looks at him? 

At least he's not belligerent, Derek placates himself. At least he doesn't lash out all the time.

Though, more than once in the past couple of days, he's heard Stiles sniffling quietly to himself upstairs. When Derek enters the room even hours later, he can smell that sad-sick-weak human smell of tears, making him blink against the stench of it. It's not great. It isn't great at all. 

Stiles, uncomfortable underneath Talia's piercing gaze, looks away from her and chews on one of his thumbs. 

“He looks so much healthier,” Talia continues, tapping a pen on top of her desk and positively beaming in Derek's direction. “You're doing a great job, Derek.” 

Derek feels like laughing in her face. He's doing a shit job. An absolute and utter fucking horror show. 

“I'm so glad he's well. Oh, this is fantastic,” she starts pulling out the dreaded black book Derek has long despised, all throughout his childhood and now into his adulthood, and Derek goes rigid in his seat. “That means I can finally start making some plans...”

Plans. Plans in his mother's terms means _events_. Places and parties that she can force Stiles and Derek to attend and get their picture taken and meet people and shake hands and make conversation and be normal. 

“Mom, I don't think -”

“Your birthday is in one week, Stiles,” Talia talks over her son and clicks her pen, flipping through the book until she lands on this month. From where Derek is sitting, he can plainly see Stiles' birthday high lighted in pink, exclamation points surrounding it. “Eighteen!” 

Stiles shifts slightly, makes a face, and looks away again. For humans, turning eighteen isn't some coming-of-age adulthood bash with streamers and presents and cake. It's not a turning point in their lives where every thing is about freedom and moving out and college. 

It's the date too many of them get taken away. Sold to whoever, dragged against their will into a house full of strangers who will more likely than not degrade them or even hurt them. Stiles should know better than anyone else that _eighteen_ is the same as _sentenced_. 

“Of course we'll have a party -”

“That's not a good -”

“Derek,” she smiles at him, but it's more of a gritted teeth and tight voice warning. “Of _course_. We'll have a party.” 

He looks away from his mother and looks to Stiles for his input on this – maybe he'll actually say something of value for the first time in days. Derek is hoping Stiles will say _no, I'd really rather not..._ or maybe _I don't like parties_ or just _something._

But, the human sits there with a frown on his face and a jiggling leg, not meeting either of their gazes. Apparently, he's back to the stage where he doesn't even voice his own discomfort, whether it's because he's afraid of what either of them will do to him if he tries to argue, or because he thinks it's futile either way, Derek can't be sure. 

“It's important that we celebrate this,” she affirms in her politics voice. “For so many human children, their eighteenth birthdays are nothing more than a symbol of oppression and a lack of freedom. It's important that he's given a party just like any other werewolf would be given; something fun instead of horrible.” 

Derek imagines, in this moment, that she's standing behind a podium in one of her skirt-suits, a team of people behind her, microphones in front of her face and a roaring crowd of wolves in front of the stage she stands on while cameras zoom in on her to catch her _moving speech_. 

“Stiles,” she addresses him directly, her voice dipping back down into the same one she uses for toddlers, not even noticing how fucking insulting it is to talk to Stiles like that – not to mention hypocritical. “Wouldn't you like a party?” 

Again, Derek turns to Stiles and wants a _fuck no_. He wants Stiles to talk to his mother the same way that he talked to Kate at the store, wants him to make a scene, cry even, just so Derek can weasel their way out of this. Instead, Stiles lowers his eyes and nods yes. 

It's plain as fucking day to Derek that if Stiles thought he had any real say in this at all, he'd be saying no. But his mother must either be deluding herself into thinking she's doing the right thing by him, or she doesn't care if he isn't being genuine. She makes a noise of _told you so_ at Derek, and starts writing things down in her fucking book. 

“Obviously your sisters will come, Derek,” she chirps, writing a mile a minute, “they'll want to meet him – oh, how nice. That'll be a good photo, an excellent photo. And your father -” a ghost that shows up only when Talia drags him by his legs in a nice suit and tie to whatever frilly occasion she's planned this time, “and your friends, Derek. How about you, Stiles? Anyone from the orphanage you'd like to invite?”

Her eyes are all lit up with the question, and Derek can see the gears turning in her head. She's imagining what it would be like to have actual human orphans at a werewolf party, in their tattered clothes, dropping makeshift hand-me-down gifts on the table alongside beautifully wrapped expensive electronics, looking like the perfect picture of _and this is why we need to save them!!_

Stiles' hands ball into fist in his lap – his face filled with tension as he stares down at the floor. “No one.” Derek thinks about that nurse at the hospital that Stiles so obviously knew - wonders if maybe he should bring her up and see what his reaction would be, but thinks better of it at the last second. 

“Don't be shy,” Talia prods. “This is your day, and you can invite who _ever_ you'd like!” 

Derek rubs at his forehead and wishes he were anywhere, literally anywhere else. Even back at home, in the silence, with Stiles hiding from him. 

“Everyone was – younger than me there,” he says, in the longest sentence Derek has heard him utter in days. “I didn't have friends.” 

Talia looks at him like he's standing in rags with an empty bowl in his hands; her eyes are so huge with pity, and Stiles doesn't realize that all he's really done is thicken her resolve. She'll find someone, some fucking random human kid that she drags out of the gutters to call Stiles' very best friend from the _bad place_ , and she'll make the two of them hug and pose. All under the guise of _he has to have someone there, doesn't he?_

If Talia cared all that much, she'd dig up his parents and bring them along to the shit show. But of course, of course, that's going too far. As much as she pretends like she gives even an ounce of a fuck about Stiles' party and Stiles' big day, she wouldn't go that far. Bringing his parents to the party would just remind everyone that what she's doing is keeping him far away from them, just to make him a poster child. She might even go so far as to tell everyone his parents are dead. Derek doesn't know that they are, hasn't looked that deep into his files – but from the way Stiles said he wanted to go home, he must be under the impression that there's someone, somewhere, waiting for him. That he'd have somewhere to go.

“Oh, honey,” she drops her pen and shakes her head sadly. “You have friends, now. Right Derek?” 

That's the final straw. 

“Stiles,” he says in a loud voice, digging into his pocket and pulling his wallet out. “There's a concession stand in the lobby. Why don't you ask Erica,” he holds a fifty dollar bill out to Stiles, who eyes it like a poisonous snake for several seconds before cautiously taking it into his own fingers, “to take you down so you can get something?” 

Stiles isn't stupid. He knows he's being sent away so the adults can talk. He gives Derek as much of a disdainful look as he likely feels comfortable giving him with his mother sitting five feet away, and rises to his feet with a nod of his head. 

As soon as the door clicks closed behind him, Talia is talking. She knows good and well, just like Stiles does, what's about to happen.

“I don't see why you're deadset on being -”

“He doesn't want this fucking party, mother,” he interrupts, leaning forward so he can drop his elbow on her clean and organized desk. “Can't you tell he's absolutely miserable?” 

“He's been through an ordeal,” she counters primly. “But I think if we throw him a -”

“You never fucking listen,” Derek shakes his head and scowls. “You're not the one who's been living with him, all right? You don't know how things are going – and they're going _bad_.” 

Talia purses her lips. “You think I expected him to warm up to you instantly, Derek?” 

“You expect him to be pleasant and cute.” The cute part Stiles might be able to pull of naturally – with his huge eyes and freckled face and skinny stature. But the pleasant bit? Not even remotely. He's surly, at best. 

“I expect him to show up, look clean, and sit still for a picture. People aren't going to question the fact that he's distant,” she waves her hand in the air like the issue has been resolved, going back to scribbling something about cake in her little book. 

Derek sits there watching her writing for another few seconds, jaw clenching and unclenching in perfect tandem, again and again. “This isn't going to work,” he snarls. 

Talia looks up from her book and cocks her head to the side. “What?” 

“Me and him. The entire thing – it's – it's not going to work.” 

“Derek -”

“He barely speaks to me,” he bursts out. Admitting it is almost shameful to him, like he has something to be embarrassed about. “He doesn't even look at me some days. All he does is – read that ridiculous book and _cry_ and -” he throws his hands in the air in frustration and growls under his breath. “He's unhappy.” 

There's a quiet moment, Talia eyeing Derek with scrutiny, her lips pursed down. Then, she slowly puts her pen on top of the book, and crosses her arms over her chest as she leans back in her chair. “Of course he's unhappy.” 

“Then _why_ are you pushing -”

“Listen to me,” she snaps. Her cheery facade is all but gone, her television personality vanishing right before Derek's very eyes, and now it's just the business side. All serious eyes and cold glares. “We took that boy out of the single poorest orphanage in the United States,” Derek didn't know that – but thinking back on how all the other kids he saw looked, how the toys looked, how skinny Stiles is... “...before he lived there, he went through factory work,” she ticks this off on her finger like a checkmark, just something to list, “and a personal owner.” 

_Personal owner_ is pretty much the equivalent of being a slave, if you're talking to the right people. That must be where Stiles got that tiger on his back from. Derek gets a chill up his spine thinking about he kinds of things he might've been asked to do under some strange werewolf's roof. 

“He was malnourished, abused, and lonely. I took him, paid for his medical bills, gave him to you to properly feed and care for, and you want to be mad at me because he's not _happy_?” 

Derek looks away, color rising to cheeks – whether in anger or shame, he's not sure. 

“I'd rather have him unhappy with us than _miserable_ and abused with someone else. He'll warm up. You'll see.” 

He isn't sure if his mother is right. People always say that there are two sides to every story – in reality, Derek knows that there are thousands of sides to every single angle of every single story. No matter how you look at something, sometimes, there are just too many choices, and too many decisions, and too many mistakes to really pinpoint what the right thing should be. On the one hand, Stiles isn't happy. On the other, he's better off. And Derek guesses he could look at it in a zillion different ways, factor in as many other things and people as he wanted to – he doesn't know what conclusion he would come to if he took the time to look.

Maybe, the best thing there is to do is to not look at all, and just face the hand you get. 

When he comes down into the lobby and finds Stiles sitting with Erica on a bench, ice cream cone in hand with chocolate dribbling down his chin, he tries to remind himself that for most of his life, Stiles never even had ice cream to get all over his shirt. At least he's eating. At least he has a roof over his head. How many times has he said that lately? At least. _At least_. 

Erica is talking to him non-stop, multitasking between glancing at Stiles every ten seconds to make sure he hasn't wandered off somewhere and typing something into her phone. 

“...if I don't call him, then he doesn't call me,” she's saying as soon as Derek's in earshot, smacking bubblegum between her teeth. “It's, like, a mind game. As if he knows I'm not going to call first if he's just going to do it, so it's a power move to not call me first so I have to be the one calling him and then he's in control of the entire situation -”

Derek has been on the other side of one of these Erica conversations many, many times before. She sits at her desk in the lobby of his mother's offices, headset on, babbling a mile a minute to anyone who just happens to be sitting there in one of the chairs waiting for his mother's attention – it's, unfortunately, more often than not been Derek. He can't even begin to go into detail about all the intricate, personal things he knows about Erica's sex life from her unabashed desire to constantly. Be. Talking. 

Stiles, for his part, is entirely focused on his ice cream, sopping up as much of it as he can in his mouth at one time. 

“Having fun?” Derek asks him, interrupting Erica in the middle of a sentence about how whatshisname has been texting other girls and stringing her along. 

The human looks up at him with about as much interest as he might give to a sea sponge. 

“He's a good listener,” Erica says around a pop of gum. “Unlike _some_ people.” 

“Just because he's quiet,” Derek says as he pulls Stiles into a standing position by his frail elbow, “doesn't mean he's _listening_.” 

Erica raises a single brow. “Stiles, what's my boyfriend's name?” 

He swallows a mouthful of cone, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “Boyd.” 

She raises her hand in the air like _see_?, smirking to herself and sending a wink in Stiles' direction. “He's my new best friend,” she titters, reaching out to run her fingers down Stiles' back, up and down, like she's petting him. It's a classic werewolf/human interaction – it's nearly the same thing as Kate scratching behind Stiles' ears like a dog. But, when Erica does it, Stiles doesn't get uncomfortable or try to move away. He doesn't appear to mind it at all, actually. Maybe because Erica does it like a sign of affection, and Kate did it like a sign of power. “I might keep him for myself.” 

“Right,” Derek snickers, putting his arm around Stiles' shoulders to start pulling him towards the parking garage. “See you later, Erica.” 

Once they're out of earshot from her, in the elevator going down to the garage, Derek nudges Stiles in the arm and asks, “she's nice, right?” 

The last of the cone gets crunched in between Stiles' teeth, loud in the silence of the elevator. “Nice, yeah.” 

A beat of silence passes. The elevator dings, and out into the garage they go, their footsteps echoing against the high ceilings. 

Stiles walks the same way he always does in public – even though he might not particularly be Derek's number one fan, he still presses up tight against his side and scans his eyes left and right nervously, keeping one halfstep behind the wolf so Derek always stays more or less in front of him. 

As he jingles his keys in his hand, Derek sighs, casting his eyes down to the ground. “I'm sorry about that idiotic birthday party,” he mutters. “I tried to get you out of it, but...when my mother sets her heart on something, she can be a bit unflappable.” 

Stiles sighs through his nose, but otherwise remains quiet. 

With Stiles around, Derek has gotten progressively more used to talking out loud – more or less to himself, since Stiles doesn't always offer a response for him to work with. So he keeps going. “She just never cares about what anyone else does or doesn't want,” he unlocks the car and opens the passenger door for Stiles, who clambers inside just as awkwardly as always, before slamming the door and walking to get into the driver's seat. “You could look her dead in the eyes and say you don't want it, and she'd find some way to convince you that you do. She's a master manipulator.” 

Stiles chews on his thumbnail, staring out the windshield as Derek starts the car. 

“I said I didn't think you'd like it, and she just -”

“I never said I don't want a party.” His voice is quiet, not nearly loud enough to cut Derek off were it anyone else – but since full sentences from Stiles are like needles in haystacks lately, Derek immediately shuts his mouth. “But I don't want to be – just – all those wolves in one place...”

Derek doesn't know what to say to that. He has no idea how he's ever supposed to make Stiles feel better about being surrounded by werewolves everywhere he goes, now. If Stiles is uncomfortable around werewolves, then he has a pretty good fucking reason to be – and that's not just something Derek can smooth over with a couple of nice words and a hug. 

“I'm scared.” 

It's the most upfront and candid that Stiles has ever been with Derek, before. It must be some kind of a milestone in their relationship, for Stiles to just admit how he feels, for once, instead of just glaring out at nothing and ignoring Derek to the best of his ability.

The issue is, Derek can't fix that. If his mother wants Stiles at the party, no matter how frightened he is, then he'll be at the party. He doesn't have a choice, and Derek can't give him one. 

“I'll be there,” he offers, lamely. “And – Erica as well.” With tentative fingers, he reaches out and puts his hand on Stiles' shoulder, squeezing as hard as he dares. “I'd never let anything happen to you. You realize that, right?” 

Stiles doesn't pull away from the touch, but he doesn't lean into it either. He more or less just allows it. “I know you wouldn't hurt me, Derek.” 

It's such a simple thing. The most basic, fundamental part of any relationship is the knowledge, or at least _belief_ , that the other person isn't going to fucking beat you up or physically harm you at any point in time – at least not on purpose. It's the bare minimum that's expected of Derek; to not snap Stiles' bones just because he feels like it, to not lock him up for doing something that Derek doesn't like. 

But, at the same time. Looking at it from another perspective, where Stiles is a human who's been menaced by wolves for most of his life, and Derek is one of the same that've hurt him – and yet, Stiles trusts him not to. Hurt him, that is. 

It might seem like nothing from the outside looking in, but to Derek, it's huge.

\----

“He looks like he's been living in an underground bunker with no food or water for the past fifteen years.”

Lydia Martin is nothing if not direct. 

She's been scrutinizing Stiles in stony silence for the past two minutes, at least, paying little to no mind to how Stiles keeps looking at Derek with _help me_ written all over his face. Unfortunately for him, there's no possible way Derek could have weaseled his way out of a meeting with Lydia before the ridiculous birthday party in two days. 

Lydia is, for lack of a better word, his mother's publicist. Which is just a shorthand way of saying that Lydia does literally every thing in her power to make sure that Talia (and by extension Derek and his sisters) don't do anything to torpedo their careers into the ground. The most memorable run in that Derek's ever had with Lydia is when he got too drunk on wolfsbane at a public party and tried to make out with with his second cousin – because he, for some reason, hallucinated her as being Megan Fox. Lydia had dragged him into the ladies bathroom, shoved his head underneath a running stream of freezing cold water, all the while calling him a long string of words like _fucking idiot, absolute embarrassment, complete disaster._

That's the kind of thing she generally handles. Scandals, interviews, and parties. Everywhere Talia goes in public, Lydia is somewhere lurking in the background, watching everyone like a hawk. 

Now, she's sitting here in Derek's living room, tasked with first of all making Stiles look _presentable_ , and second of all making Derek and Stiles as a couple _believable_. From Derek's point of view, both of these things look impossible – how could Derek and Stiles possibly be believable when the only half-affectionate thing he ever does is cling to Derek's side out of fear of other werewolves? 

“He sort of has been,” Derek grimaces back at her, ignoring the way Stiles shifts marginally closer to him the longer that Lydia stares. “I tried telling my mother that bringing him out for pictures right now wouldn't be a good idea, but -”

Lydia cuts him off by raising a finger into the air for silence, pursing her lips together and finally looking away from Stiles to fit her gaze on Derek. She has this way of looking at people where it's like she can see clean through to your soul. It scared the shit out of Derek when they were teenagers and in school together, and it scares the shit out of him now. “Make up and well fitted clothes can fix that just fine. That's not the problem.” Her finger waves inbetween the two men – well, one man, one kid (though not for very much longer). “ _That's_ the problem.” 

Derek and Stiles exchange a look. 

“It's one thing for him to be pathetic looking,” she huffs, leaning back in her seat and fixing her gaze on Stiles pointedly, “but it's another if he can't even look anyone in the eyes.” 

In defiance of this statement, maybe just because he wants to prove something, Stiles looks away from Derek and glares directly at Lydia. Right into her eyes. 

Lydia raises her eyebrows and smirks. “He's kind of sassy, isn't he?” 

“Don't talk about him like he's not in the room,” Derek hisses at her right as Stiles is opening up his mouth – it's always best to cut Stiles off before he really gets any steam, Derek has learned. Telling Kate to go fuck herself was wonderful and the greatest thing Derek has ever seen, but mouthing off to Lydia is never a good idea. She has a vengeful streak inside of her – one time, when Derek called her a bitch, she set him up with back to back television interviews. His worst fucking nightmare. 

“Fair enough,” Lydia says back coolly, before meeting Stiles' eyes again. “ _You_ need to fix your fucking attitude.” 

Stiles stares back at her blankly, his jaw tightening. “Because anyone else in my situation would have a _great_ attitude, right?” Sarcasm drips off his tone, almost violently, and Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. How is it possible that he got saddled with the single worst backtalking human in the entire state? 

Lydia rolls her eyes. “Everyone already knows you've had a hard go of it, Stiles. Walking around with that bitter teenaged _fuck off_ attitude isn't going to help you. At all. If you're not willing to _adjust_ ,” she spreads the word out far longer than two syllables, “then I can't do my job.” 

Everyone else has treated Stiles like a tiny little breakable doll – walking on eggshells around his troubled past and not even mentioning the kinds of things he's had to go through to get up to this point. Everyone else has been, at the bare minimum, pitying towards him. Lydia, though – she doesn't look like she pities him at all. She doesn't look like she feels sorry for him, that he has to get married to a stranger, and she doesn't look like she's going to be coddling him anytime soon. 

Derek half expects Stiles to either burst into tears right then and there, or to maybe launch across the desk at her to try and choke her out, somehow. 

Instead, he looks away from her eyes as if he's just been told off, and frowns to himself. 

“We can either have a smooth relationship with one another as we try to make this work,” she points to Stiles, then to Derek, then to herself, “or we can all be miserable with each other. Your pick.” 

The grandfather clock over the fireplace in Derek's living room tick, tocks, tick, tocks, while Lydia stares at the profile of Stiles' face, and Stiles stares out the window. Derek looks between them again and again – even though he's just as involved with this fucking charade as either of them are, Lydia already knows Derek is going to go along with this without complaint. He doesn't have a leg to stand on, no way to talk his way out of it. 

Stiles is the one Lydia has to worry about. 

Another few seconds of silence, and then Stiles is sighing through his nose, slowly turning back to look Lydia in the face. “What do you want me to do.” 

Lydia smiles at him. “A little bit of acting is all. You can _pretend_ , can't you? You're pretending right now.” 

Stiles shifts underneath her gaze, uncomfortable. “I'm not -”

“You're pretending like you're not scared of me. But you are.” 

Derek has noticed that Stiles likes to bark more than he has the follow through to bite. When he verbally attacked Kate in Wal-Mart, he was beside himself for hours after the fact – shaking with a glazed expression on his face, like all the fear he had been shoving deep down into himself in the face of a werewolf was bubbling up to the surface, unable to be hidden away anymore. Every time he gives Derek a certifiable death glare or ignores one of his questions, he starts fidgeting and averts his eyes. Derek guesses that it is an act, after all. 

“You don't scare me,” Stiles says – but his voice is too quiet. There's no venom, there. He gazes down at his lap and hyperfocuses his attention on the fabric in his jeans. 

“Yeah?” She snaps her fingers and Stiles looks up at her – just in time to see her shift into her beta form. Canines elongated over her bottom lip, eyes glowing bright golden in the dim light seeping in through the windows, face distorted as she taps her claws over the desk one after the other. "How about now?" 

Immediately, Stiles drops his gaze again and leans closer to Derek. His fingers are quaking where they're digging into the fabric of the couch they share, while his heartbeat up-ticks in _terror_ , and his breath begins to come out faster between his lips. 

God only knows what kind of things Stiles has been put through by wolves wearing that face in front of him. How many times he's been clawed or threatened or – or what _else_ while a wolf looked at him like that. He's probably traumatized by the true face ten times over. 

“Stop that,” Derek snaps at her, wrapping a hand around Stiles' thin shoulders. As soon as contact has been made, Stiles latches onto Derek's arm like a lifeline and pulls himself closer to the wolf – safety. Familiarity. It's really all Stiles has anymore. “You're scaring the _shit_ out of him, Lydia.” 

Lydia morphs her face back into the prettier one, eyes fading back to seafoam green instead of startling golden. “That's exactly what we need,” she says, in spite of the fact that Stiles is still shivering and digging the metal brace around his injured finger into Derek's side. 

“What?” Derek demands, tearing Stiles' fingers out of his shirt and entwining their fingers together to try and comfort him. “Him going _catatonic_ in fear, Lydia? _That's_ how we're going to convince people that he and I are for real?” 

She grins at them, watching as Stiles slowly curls his own fingers into Derek's and lets himself be held like this. “People are going to gobble this shit up.”


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so first off, it's going to be four chapters after all. Which most likely means chapter three will be up by the 4th, but it won't be entirely done until a few days after that. Sorry to say :(

“He looks – I mean – he looks so _young_.” Kira Yukimura gestures a bit wildly to the gigantic blown up photograph they've put up of Stiles on the screen behind her, while next to her, her co-host Isaac Lahey nods his head emphatically in agreement. “He looks like a kid!” 

“Technically he is one,” Isaac chimes in, tapping his fingers on top of the counter they're perched in front of. “He's only been eighteen for hours.” 

“And he looks -” she pouts unhappily, “miserable!” 

Well, of course he looks fucking miserable, Derek thinks from his spot on the couch. They fished out the same picture of him that Derek first saw – the shitty little polaroid that came along with his file. It must have been taken five or so months ago, judging from the length of his hair, when he was still out at Mother Mary's. It's the first picture Mary sent out for wolves to look at to decide if they wanted him on his eighteenth birthday. That knowledge alone is what put the dead-eyed stare on Stiles' face, the deep-set frown onto his lips. 

“He looks like a human.” Isaac shrugs his shoulders like that's all there is to it. Any misery, unhappiness, or ire to be found inside of Stiles can all be chalked up to that. “He's probably much happier _now_.” 

“Right,” Kira agrees firmly. “He must be! I mean, getting chosen by a wolf alone is enough to make any human much happier -” Derek wants to throw up in his mouth, “but to get chosen by _Derek Hale_. Wow. Wow! All that money...” 

All the money in the world couldn't change the fact that Stiles has been nothing more than a toy waiting to be taken off the shelves for his entire life. 

“I think the photos of him that'll come out tonight will be much more telling,” Isaac says now, glancing behind himself at the image of Stiles one last time. He frowns at it, and then shrugs his shoulders like it doesn't even matter. “I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see he and Derek together.” 

“I know,” Kira slaps a hand over her heart and sighs dreamily. “How romantic. What I'm really interested in is the ring that'll be on Stiles' finger – God, how many karats do you think?” 

“A lot.”

“Tonight is going to be the first of many important nights for Derek Hale and his human,” the camera zooms in close on Kira's face, so Isaac fades into the background, and all anyone watching can see is Kira's cheery grin and bright eyes. “We can't forget there's only two and a half months until Derek's going to be marrying him, in what I'm sure is going to be the most talked about wedding of -”

Derek flicks the television off and growls under his breath, swishing the ice in his glass around and nearly running a hand through his hair until remembering it's been styled and gelled already. He's sitting in his father's old study in the upper level of his mother's house – below him, he can hear the sound of a thousand or so werewolves milling around, clinking glasses and forks, shoving tiny little pastries into their mouths and laughing. Having the time of their fucking lives celebrating the birthday of a human they couldn't give less of a fuck about. 

He hasn't been down there, yet. But there's only another ten minutes or so until he and Stiles are supposed to make their _grand entrance_ for the first time as a public couple, and his nerves are going haywire at the thought of it. 

First, there's the fact that the training Lydia put he and Stiles through to be convincing as lovers didn't go well as far as Derek is concerned. Lydia wanted them to kiss, for God's sake, and Derek nearly pulled a muscle telling her what a _horrible_ idea that would be. He doesn't even think Stiles has kissed anyone in his life – he'd hate for his first fucking kiss to be in front of two dozen cameras. Stiles had given him a bizarre look watching this argument about kissing between Lydia and Derek go down, his lips curved down into a deep frown, like he was trying to figure out what the problem was. Like he just didn't see the big deal.

Other than that, Derek was argumentative, Stiles was chilly silent, and Lydia was frustrated. 

Second, there's Stiles. The absolute last thing that Derek wants, and probably the last thing that Stiles wants as well, is to push Stiles out into a room filled with that many wolves to leer at him and pet him and ask him questions about his former life. It puts Derek's wolf on edge first of all to have to share someone its already claimed as its own with a thousand other werewolves, and second of all to know that Stiles isn't happy about it either. 

All in all, this night is shaping up to be a disaster. Of monumental proportions. Derek would not be surprised if by night's end, he's clawed six other wolves for trying to feed Stiles treats like an animal. 

The door bangs open, finally – Derek has been sitting in here for two fucking hours now, drinking and glowering by himself – and Lydia is pushing Stiles into the room in front of her, saying, “this boy is a nuisance – trying to get him to sit still for even five seconds is like pulling _teeth_.” 

Stiles looks annoyed. He looks good, but he looks pissed off and ready to fight the next person who tries to adjust even a single strand of his hair. 

He's wearing dark jeans and a red t-shirt, his hair carefully and meticulously styled so every strand is in exactly the right place. Derek, on the other hand, has been forced into a dress shirt tucked into slacks. Whatever reasoning Lydia had for making Derek look so much more serious and grown-up, while Stiles looks like he's about to go to a fucking house party hosted by the coolest kid in school, is beyond him. But she knows what she's doing. 

Stiles walks straight over to Derek and sits down on the couch beside him, casting a dirty look in Lydia's direction, before sinking deep into the cushions and - “get your head away from the pillows, _Stiles_ , that hair took thirty minutes.” 

Sighing, Stiles sits back up and leans forward – but he doesn't look happy about it. 

Lydia looks at Derek, then at the glass in his hand, and frowns. “Are you drunk?” 

“Do I seem drunk to you?” He demands, dropping the empty glass down onto the table. “I had a glass, all right? Singular. God knows I fucking needed it to get through this -”

“Oh, boo,” Lydia mocks, putting her hands on her hips. “You have to attend an expensive party and talk to people. The _misery_ – don't put your feet on that coffee table, _Stiles_.” 

Derek has noticed that Lydia is always saying Stiles' name like that – _Stiles_ – the syllables all drawn out and clipped at the same time, like she's chastising her own son or something. Stiles drops his feet back down on the carpet, frowns, and clasps his hands together, the brace on his broken finger clinking against the engagement ring on his opposite hand. 

It's fourteen karats, as Kira and Isaac will happily tell everyone during their ridiculous gossip segment tomorrow night, with a zoomed in picture of Stiles' hand on the screen behind them. The things were picked out by his mother, of course, mailed over with a note in her swirling handwriting reading _hope they fit!_

Since Derek's mother is nothing if not thorough, of course they both fit them perfectly. 

“Come on,” Lydia says to them now, beckoning at them with two fingers. “If we don't get you down there soon, your mother's going to come looking for me to tear my head off for keeping you so long.” 

When they're downstairs outside the doors of the party and the noise is nearly deafening, even muffled by the heavy wood, Stiles starts to fidget his fingers. His outward signs of nerves toward this entire ordeal have been mostly subdued, buried deep inside of him to keep up the pretenses of being nonchalant about the entire thing – but Derek could tell. From the way that Stiles barely slept last night, tossing and turning and waking Derek up every fifteen minutes, and the way he barely ate anything all day, and how he's absolutely _reeked_ of anxiety, Derek could fucking tell. 

But he hasn't mentioned it. Better to let Stiles think he's being convincing.

Now, Derek puts his hand on the small of Stiles' back – right in the spot where the knows one of the tiger's paws is resting – and leans down to murmur in his ear. “Stay close to me,” Stiles nods his head in agreement, twining and untwining his fingers again and again. “Don't leave my side.” 

“Try not to look like you're being tortured in an underground bunker somewhere,” Lydia adds on, tapping something into her phone and running her free hand down the front of her sleek red dress. With those final words, she raises her eyebrows at them, and shoves the door open. 

The second they're out there, Derek seriously feels like bundling Stiles up in one of the curtains from the windows and making a run for it. With super senses, every single werewolf in the room, as huge as it is, knows the exact second that a human has entered the premises. As far as Derek knows, Stiles will be the only human here tonight – his scent must cut through the wolf smell like a knife, from the way hundreds of pairs of eyes instantly lock on him as he takes his first steps into the room at Derek's side. 

Stiles moves like he's going to freeze in place, whether out of sheer terror or panic or just surprise Derek isn't sure, but he puts a stop to that right quick by latching onto his arm and tugging him along beside him at the same pace. The sooner they get the initial shock over with and move to the part with the alcohol and the food, the better. 

They move through the crowd, that parts for them as easily as the red sea parting for fucking Moses, with eyes glued to them as they go, murmuring surrounding them on all sides – things like _he's so small are all humans really that small, look at the ring on his finger, they look good together right_ , while the music still plays on in the background and some people actually have the decency to pretend like they're still enjoying the party instead of leering at the human. 

The second one of the wolves gets a little bit too close to him, Stiles latches onto Derek's wrist and digs his fingers into the skin – anyone watching would think it was affection instead of fear. Lydia might've been right about that all along, because Derek hears more than one wolf titter about how _cute_ it is to see a human be so close with a werewolf. 

As soon as Derek spots his mother, standing among the salmon puffs and making small talk with a woman he vaguely recognizes from television, he wraps his arm around Stiles' shoulders – cue the _aww_ – and guides him over there like it's a safe haven. Over there, at least, Talia is the devil that Stiles knows. 

Her eyes widen when she sees them – how could she have possibly not noticed them making their fucking entrance – and her entire face lights up in excitement, beckoning them over and almost pulling a muscle doing so. “Good!” She calls to them when they're fifteen feet away. That's when Derek notices his sisters milling around as well. Better to get this over with than put it off any longer than he already has, he figures with a frown. “Come on, come on, I'm so glad you're here!” 

Like they had any choice. 

Cora practically hip checks Talia to get her out of the way once Stiles and Derek are within talking distance, feasting her eyes on Stiles like she's just spotted her next victim, grinning wolfishly. “Hi!” She caws at him only, like Derek isn't even there. She actually bends down to bridge the height difference between them, like she's talking to a little kid, but at least with Cora, it's never malicious. “I'm Cora Hale, Derek's sister. Maybe you recognize me.”

Cora didn't take after Talia's proclivity for politics – but she did latch onto the desire to be on television and seen by millions of people on any given weekday night. She got into modeling, _commercial_ modeling, fairly young. The chances that Stiles the human has seen any of Cora's ludicrous commercials for shampoo, with her flipping her hair around and winking into the camera, are slim to none, but to his credit, he only smiles and nods like he has any fucking clue what she's talking about at all. “Nice to meet you.” 

She grins at him, before straightening back up to her full height and introduces Laura standing beside her.

For her part, she dangles a glass of something red and fizzling in his direction. “Happy birthday,” she says with a smile. 

Stiles reaches out to the take the glass with a thin smile, but Derek catches his wrist at the last second, frowning at his sister. “There's not any wolfsbane in there, right?” 

Laura rolls her eyes and pushes the glass towards Stiles' more forcefully, almost sending some droplets spilling on to the marble floor. “He's eighteen, Derek. He can have a little.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles concurs. “I can have a little.” 

This screams _bad idea_ to Derek. Like, horrible fucking idea. Derek isn't entirely positive of what kind of effect wolfsbane alcohol has on humans, but he has the common sense to figure that it probably gets them drunk about ten times faster than it would a wolf. All the same, he can't say _no_ to Stiles, so he lets go of his wrist so Stiles can snatch the glass out of Laura's hand. 

All four wolves standing there watch him as he takes his first sip. Once it's in his mouth, he scrunches his face up like he's just eaten a lemon, swallowing it with so much force it's like he's forcing down nails. 

Derek guesses he won't have to worry about Stiles having too much, then. 

Laura laughs, patting him on the head. If Lydia's watching, she's probably having a hernia over the mess Laura makes of Stiles' carefully done up hair. “That was a rite of passage. You don't have to drink anymore.” 

“Yeah, welcome to the family,” Cora drawls, crossing her arms across her satin dress. “Get drunk, embarrass yourself. It's what we do.” 

“It's what _Derek_ does,” Laura corrects, hiding her smile behind her own glass. 

Derek's cheeks heat up, all the way to the tip of his ears, and he looks pointedly away. Yes, all right? He has been known to make a drunken buffoon out of himself at some – most – of his mother's ridiculous parties. But it's not his fault. These things are so awful, and the people he has to talk to so bland, alcohol is the only way he's managed to survive a single one of them. 

He guesses that the reason having this particular piece of his dirty laundry aired out for Stiles to look at embarrasses him so much is because up to this point, Derek's been somewhat immaculate in Stiles' eyes. All the money, and the food, and the comfort and the safety. Even if Stiles doesn't particularly love Derek or anything, he bare minimum thinks he's a respectable individual. 

Now, he probably thinks Derek's a drunk. This is the exact reason he's been putting off introducing Stiles to his sisters for so long. When he chances a glance in the human's direction, he's taking another sip of his alcohol, souring his face up again, before holding it away from him like he's done with it, now. 

"Where's your dad?" He leans up on his tip-toes to murmur this into Derek's ear while his sisters start planning Derek's wedding - apparently, the colors are going to be red and white. Prior experience would tell Derek that his father is more like than not wrapped up with a cocktail waitress behind a curtain somewhere, while his wife stands twenty feet away and pours liquor down her throat. Fun, fun times at the Hale house. 

Derek doesn't think Stiles would like hearing that information, so he just shrugs and says _he must be around here somewhere_. Derek wouldn't be surprised if he goes the entire night without seeing him, except for in the photos that'll come out tomorrow. 

Talia inserts herself back into the conversation by wrapping a hand around Stiles' upperarm, ignoring the way the human jerks at the touch and casts a wide-eyed, horror stricken look in Derek's direction. “We can't hide you away forever – let's go meet and greet!”

Derek would sooner leave Stiles alone with a hungry lion than with his mother – and he more or less promised not to leave Stiles' side at any point during the party. So he snatches a flute of champagne from the table and follows behind Stiles as he's dragged down the line of food towards a gaggle of people that, again, look vaguely familiar. Derek should probably know all these people by name, by now. 

Nearly everyone that's introduced to Stiles gives him the same exact look. Surprise at the fact that he looks ten thousand times better than the photograph of him on television, followed by glee at how _well-behaved_ he is, and then, finally, near-amazement as they look between him and Derek again and again. They all shake Stiles' hand with amusement, smiles peeking at their lips like they're just humoring him, but in the following conversation, most of them do something belittling. Like holding a salmon puff out for him like a treat, or putting on baby-talk voices as they speak to him. 

Derek can't even say anything about it in this particular setting. Each time someone pisses him off, he takes another sip of his drink. Almost like a drinking game – _drink whenever Stiles gets dehumanized._ It's all good fun. 

Stiles just takes it all in as much stride as possible. He leans against Derek's side every time he gets too uncomfortable, a signal for Derek to wrap his arm around him pointedly. Most wolves know to recognize that as a _back off_ move, and back off they do, with raised eyebrows. 

All things considered, though, the night's not going nearly as bad as it could be. The most awkward moment of all is when Stiles' eyes finally catch the huge table littered with a mountain of gifts so high it looks about to topple over at any second, and he frowns. Talia catches him looking, smiles her television smile, and says, “that's all for _you_ , Stiles.” Like she's done him the most incredible favor of all time by ordering her guests to bring the human presents on his birthday. 

Stiles doesn't look thrilled. At all. And makes absolutely no attempts to cover it up. He gazes at the present mound uncomfortably, looks at Derek with a frown so intense his mouth looks about to fall off his face, and says, “can they take them back?” 

They endure two seconds of dead, awkward silence – Talia staring at him like he's just grown an extra head – before Derek forces a laugh out of his throat and pats Stiles on the back, saying, _very funny, Stiles_. Stiles scrunches his face up like he doesn't get the joke as everyone else laughs right along with Derek just to quell the uncomfortable air left behind in the wake of the human sounding ungrateful. 

Derek knows it's really that Stiles doesn't like the thought of accepting things like that from weres. But explaining that to _this_ group of people just isn't an option. 

Other than that, nothing goes wrong. Stiles eats, and Derek switches himself over to sparkling cider before he starts stumbling around, people take their picture and ask Stiles to hold out his hand so they can look at the ring, and it's fine. 

It's when Derek is showing Stiles the chocolate fountain, stabbing marshmallows with toothpicks for him to dip under the stream, that someone starts calling Stiles' name. Derek hears it long before Stiles does. He raises his eyes away from Stiles and the chocolate, turns around, not knowing what to expect. Who the hell would be pushing through the crowd shouting Stiles' name like that? 

Derek settles his eyes on a kid around Stiles' age shoving people out of his way, shouting _move, move,_ in between drawn out calls for Stiles' attention. It's not someone Derek's ever seen before. He doesn't have a pinch of familiarity that he gets with nearly everyone else here – this is a stranger. That's somehow meandered his way inside a private party inside the Hale estate. 

He's getting ready to wave security over when Stiles finally hears him. 

Stiles freezes mid-chew on a marshmallow, turns around with comically large eyes. As soon as he sees the person coming towards him, he drops the uneaten half of his marshmallow, tooth pick and all, onto the ground and starts all but _charging_ away from Derek's side towards this fucking stranger. 

It's startling enough that Derek doesn't react right away. He never would've thought that at any point tonight Stiles would be running from his side, headfirst into a crowd of wolves all by himself – but there he goes. 

In the three seconds that it takes Derek's brain to catch up and finally take a step forward to chase after him, the distance between Stiles and whoever it is that's broken into his birthday party has already been closed. Stiles is already flinging himself at another werewolf, wrapping his arms around the others' neck, and letting himself be held right back. 

Around them, people stare in stunned silence, dropped jaws and confused looks exchanged among themselves. Derek is just another one of them in this situation – an outsider as much of the rest of them are, as confused as anyone else. 

Although, unfortunately, Derek's wolf isn't really all that confused. Standing there watching a strange beta run his hands all over Stiles doesn't perplex his wolf or make him wonder who that person is – it makes him angry. Before the more lucid part of Derek can really stop himself, he's stalking forwards and growling under his breath, with the pure intent to rip that person's head off and throw it over his shoulder into the punch bowl. Consequences of such an action absolutely be damned – the thought of another wolf rubbing his scent into Stiles' clothes and Stiles' skin is enough to have him seeing red around the edges of his vision. 

It's a good thing that before Derek can get close enough to touch either of them, before Derek can wrap his hand around Stiles to pull him out of the other wolf's hands, Stiles breaks the hug. He turns his head just enough so that Derek can see the expression on his face...

And it's not an expression that Derek would recognize. Not on Stiles. 

Stiles has been complacent, angry, sad, miserable, blank, and bored. 

But he's never, not since Derek has met him, ever been genuinely happy. The smile on his face is so unlike the ones he's been doling out to everyone else at the party and elsewhere – it's not tight or thin or forced. For the first time, he's smiling with all his teeth, dimples Derek didn't even know the human had pronounced in his cheeks. The _smell_ of him alone has Derek stopping in his tracks before he can ruin this. Not bitter like lemon rinds or sour like old fruit, but fresh. Warm. Linens fresh out of the dryer. 

He doesn't want that scent to ever stop. 

“What are you doing here, Scott?” Stiles demands, fisting his fingers into the shirt of his – friend's? - shirt. “How did you even know – how did -”

“I saw you on TV,” Scott explains back to him quickly, casting a furtive glance in Derek's direction. “Mom told me that she saw you and I thought she was just hallucinating or imagining things, but then – and now -” 

“How did you get in here?” 

A sheepish look crosses Scott's face, and that's all the answer Derek really needs. He somehow, someway, managed to sneak past the mountains of security that Talia must have lined up out front. How he ever pulled that off, Derek will never be able to fucking imagine; but either way, Stiles doesn't get the opportunity to ask. 

As it turns out, while Derek might have been too slow, too stunned, too baffled to get security over, Talia wasn't. She's probably been watching this entire thing with a horrified expression on her face, watching as cameras flashed while her poster-boy abused human just ran into a strange werewolf's arms instead of her son's. This is, perhaps, bad PR. 

The alpha security guards shove their way through the crowd into the clearing that Scott and Stiles have made for themselves, completely ignoring Derek where he's hovering ten or so feet away from them with his hands shoved into his pockets to hide his elongated claws. One of them says something along the lines of _step back from the human with your hands in the air_ , and that's when Stiles even notices they're there at all. He sweeps his huge eyes over them as they step closer, tasers drawn, and - 

... _freaks_ out. 

Fingers digging into Scott's arms, face contorted in anger, screaming _no_ again and again, _freaks out_. If people weren't watching before, they sure as shit are now. 

“Stop it,” Stiles shouts when one of the alphas tries to pry Scott free from Stiles' grip, “stop, _stop_ , please, don't -” 

It's the most upset and distraught that Derek has ever seen Stiles. He doesn't have to think much about finally moving closer to the scene with his hands in the air, shoving one of the security guards and then another, before saying, “ _hey_. Leave him alone.” 

The alphas glance at one another for a second, and then back to Scott. The kid clearly does not fucking belong here – in ratty jeans, a band t-shirt, and old sneakers, he sticks out like a sore thumb among the rest of the wealthy aristocrats here. Now, they're tasked with whether they're going to listen to Talia's direct orders, or to Derek. Who, in their eyes, has ownership over what does or doesn't happen to Stiles. Who does or doesn't get to talk to him or touch him. 

Finally, they raise their own hands in the air and step away, letting go of Scott and frowning in confusion. Talia is probably absolutely fucking fuming right about now. 

Stiles uncurls his fingers from Scott's arms, and turns to look directly into Derek's eyes. Something akin to awe is written all over his face as he looks at him, like he cannot believe that Derek just did that for him. Like it's such a shock that Derek's not having Scott taken away to be thrown into jail for breaking and entering right now. By all counts, Derek should be doing that. Maybe if he were just another werewolf with a pet human, that's exactly what he would be doing. 

But, just – the look on Stiles' face when he saw this person. And the way he smelled while he was in that hug. 

Like Derek has said before. Not being able to say _no_ to whatever Stiles wants might start becoming a problem for him. 

“This is my friend,” Stiles says in a rush, scanning the murmuring crowd around them with an air of suspicion and nervousness. “He's my _friend_. Don't let them – he was just -”

“Okay,” Derek says quietly, putting one hand on Stiles' back for just a second. “Okay. No one's going to do anything. Your friend can stay.” There's a few beats of silence, everyone staring at them – specifically, at Derek, wondering what the hell he's going to do about this. 

Just _what_ is Derek going to do about the stranger that's broken into his family's estate and run his hands all over what some of these people consider to be Derek's certifiable _property_? 

Derek sticks his hand out in Scott's direction, much to the amazement of anyone who's watching (and, really, everyone probably is), and says, “I'm Derek Hale. Stiles' fiancee.” 

Scott looks at Stiles with a bemused smile on his face, as if he's waiting for Stiles to burst out laughing like _fiancee?!?! yeah right!!_. When that doesn't happen, Scott furrows his brow, but sticks his hand out all the same to wrap around Derek's, shaking it twice. “Scott McCall.” 

McCall. The same last name as the nurse that Stiles recognized from the first day he and Stiles even met. But that woman was human, without a doubt; humans are the only ones allowed to work at the human hospital, either way. That must be his mother, then. It's the only explanation - she must have gotten pregnant, and when it came out with its father's wolf eyes instead of her own human ones, she was probably more relieved than she's ever been in her life. Freedom. 

This doesn't feel like the most excellent setting to have an in-depth discussion about the roots of the McCall family, so instead, Derek clears his throat and tries to look as normal and calm as possible, so maybe people will get the hint to go back to their own conversations and quit eavesdropping now that the drama and dust has settled. “How do you and Stiles know each other?” 

Stiles smiles at Derek, the first time a real genuine smile has been sent in his direction, and Derek knows that he's done the right thing. Maybe everyone else would say differently, but Derek doesn't particularly care about everyone else. “He lived next door to my last -” he stops himself short, side-eyes Derek for a second, and then corrects his word choice. “...to my owner.” 

The great mystery of the personal owner, and the tiger on Stiles' back – Derek is just about to leap at this opportunity to ask where, specifically, this owner of his lived, what they did for a living, who, specifically they are so Derek could... _talk_ to them. 

And then, his mother finally shows up. Derek knew she would, that she was just standing there biding her time waiting for it, but even he was truly unprepared for the expression on her face. Her body language. 

She looks about two steps away from grabbing Scott McCall by his ear and throwing him clean through a window. As an alpha, she really probably could if she was given an opportunity to do just that. With the single most fake smile on her face that Derek has ever seen – her eyes are really where the anger is at the moment – she says through grit teeth, “and who's this?” 

Stiles looks at her for a moment, curling his fingers around Scott's upperarm again, and then looks to Derek. 

To _handle_ the situation. 

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose, raises his eyes to the ceiling as he wonders to himself exactly when Stiles out of nowhere got such a fucking hold over him, and then settles his eyes back down onto his mother. “Let's leave them alone to talk,” he says, grabbing his mother by her arm and pulling her away from the two boys. “They probably have a lot to catch up on.” 

His mom's not about to make a scene worse than the one that's already happened out of her control, so she gives Derek little more than a piercing gaze as she allows herself to be lead away from Stiles and his friend. 

He comes to a stop in a secluded corner of the party, his back to the wall so he can flick his eyes up to see what Scott and Stiles are doing at any given second – not that he doesn't trust Scott to not snap his human's neck, or something, because Derek highly doubts Stiles would be friends with a wolf like that, but. Mostly to keep his own mind at ease. He's still a stranger to Derek, after all. 

“I want that _person_ ,” Talia hisses at Derek, finger pointed into his face, “gone. I want you to tell Stiles his _friend_ has to leave, or I'll do it myself.” 

Derek sets his jaw. “No.” 

“Do you realize,” she steps closer into his personal space, narrowing her eyes down into slits as her voice drops down low enough that not even a wolf could hear from a distance, “what it looks like that the human you're set to marry is closer to a stranger than he is to you?” 

“So what?” Derek demands, raising his hand in the air to show off his ring. “I'm still the one who's going to be marrying him in two fucking months, mother. What does him having a friend have to do with any of that?” 

“Derek.” Her voice has reached that dangerous timbre that Derek recognizes all too well from his childhood – the equivalent of _if you don't do what I say right now, you're going to fucking regret it_. “Get rid of him.” 

For a few seconds, Derek just stares at his mother. He has known, maybe even before he really recognized what he was seeing, that there is a clear-cut difference between his mother when there's a microphone in front of her face, and his mother when there's not. But that difference has never been more pronounced than it is right now, at this ridiculous party – how she says one thing for her audience, but once the curtain's closed, she says another. 

If people knew that Talia Hale wanted to have the one and only real friend of the human she's supposed to be treating as an equal to wolves carted off like a criminal for ruining the image she's trying to cultivate, Derek wonders what they would say about that. 

He glances over at Scott and Stiles, talking animatedly with one another with something that sounds a lot like Scott explaining how he even managed to get in here to begin with (jumping the terrace, diving into the bushes, crawling in through an unlocked window) when he lends half an ear to the conversation – and thickens his resolve. “I'm not going to do anything.” 

“I will -”

“This is his _birthday_ , mother,” Derek warns her, cutting her off before she gets a chance to use whatever petty threat she's got locked and loaded. (I will cancel your credit cards, I will repossess your car, I will ruin your life, blah blah blah). “You said he could have a friend at his party, and there's his friend. Don't be _fucking_ cruel.” 

And it's funny how he's used that word to describe both his mother and Kate Argent, now. How they're supposed to be so different from one another, but now Derek is having a hard time telling them apart. 

With those final parting words, Derek walks away. He goes straight back over to where Stiles and Scott are standing, without even looking over his shoulder to see what his mother's next move is going to be; he's half afraid she'll send out the dogs to take Scott McCall away herself, but the night passes without incident, and Scott manages to keep all his limbs by the time he has to leave. 

Stiles is in rare form all night long from that point on. Derek's heard him be sarcastic and contradictory before, of course he has, but nothing like the way he is with Scott. With Scott, all his jabs feel more like actual _jokes_ than like attacks – and Stiles making jokes or being friendly with another person is foreign enough that all Derek can really do all night is stand there like an awkward third wheel listening to their conversations. 

When it comes time for him to leave, Scott frowns at the time on his phone and cites something about needing to pick his mother up before midnight. Stiles frowns right back at him and starts fidgeting, staring down at his hands and shoes dejectedly. 

They share a hug, and Scott says, “maybe I'll see you some other time...” in a voice that suggests that he thinks Derek or Talia or _whoever_ is most likely gunning to keep them apart, and that Scott and Stiles won't be seeing each other any time soon. 

Derek clears his throat right as they break away from the hug. “You can give me your phone number,” he offers somewhat awkwardly, scratching at the back of his neck. Both pairs of eyes swivel in his direction, Scott suspiciously, Stiles in excitement. “So Stiles can call and invite you over anytime? And of course you'll come to the wedding.” 

Scott still has that suspicious glint in his eyes, like he doesn't trust a single word that comes out of Derek's mouth, but he gives Stiles a tight smile and nods his head. “Yeah. I'll be your best man!” 

Stiles looks like he's about to fucking explode, just absolutely go up in flames in disbelief, while Derek taps Scott's number into his phone. 

Right before Scott leaves, he latches onto Stiles' wrist and leans in close to him, giving Derek a long look, before switching his eyes back to look into Stiles'. “You'd tell me,” he murmurs, “if something was wrong. Right?” If nurse McCall is his mother, then without a doubt she told him about the broken finger – it wouldn't surprise Derek at all if both she and Scott believe the accident storyline his mother weaved out at the hospital was a load of garbage and cover-up for something more sinister. 

Stiles nods his head, casting his eyes to the ground. “I'd tell you.” 

Derek guesses what Scott doesn't understand is that this entire situation is wrong. Everything about it. Stiles knows that just as well as Derek does, if not even more. 

In the car, after managing to escape the dwindling party without having another run in with his mother, Stiles is quiet. Derek drives through his old neighborhood and maneuvers past all the parked cars from whatever party guests are still left, and Stiles sits there doing his fidgeting thing and staring down at his feet. 

It's another fifteen minutes, when they're already on the highway, that he speaks up. “So...your mom was pretty mad.” He fiddles with his seatbelt, scratches at his cheek, turns to stare out the window. He seems genuinely nervous. 

“You don't worry about that, okay?” Derek grips the steering wheel tight and huffs. “That's not your problem. I'll deal with her.” 

“But I'm the reason that -”

“Stiles. You are so far from the reason that any of this his happened. None of this is your fault. I can handle my mother just fine.” He's been handling his mother and her proclivity for two-faced bullshit for over twenty years now. 

The streetlights cast odd shadows across Stiles' face, and he looks pent up; as if there are a million things he'd like to be saying right about now, but he just isn't sure how to even start. 

Derek thinks about how easily Stiles talked to Scott McCall, how he didn't fidget or look nervous or avert his eyes, and how he smelled. Derek just wants Stiles that happy again, really. And, even moreso, he'd like to be the reason for it. Maybe that's selfish. 

“It's just -” Stiles starts, voice low and tentative. “You don't know how – _nice_ it was of you to...” Stiles' hand is suddenly _there_ on Derek's forearm, his long fingers squeezing almost affectionately. 

This marks the first time that Stiles has touched Derek of his own volition, not out of fear or the necessity of safety. But because he wants to. Derek can't help glancing down to look at how Stiles' fingers look on his arm when they're not clutching on in terror. 

“Scott's the only friend I've had since I left home. You don't know how – it's just...” He retracts his hand and runs it through his hair, now that Lydia's not around to scold him for it. “You're nothing like I thought you would be.” 

So, Derek's not abusive or mean. The bar has never been set lower. 

“You're not like Kate Argent,” the name sounds like a curse coming out of his mouth, “and you're not like your mother either.”

Derek doesn't know how he knows, isn't sure why _now_ , but he's pretty sure that this is a turning point for he and Stiles' relationship. Derek has spent the last two weeks of this month, of this entire ordeal really, pretty much working exclusively to drill into Stiles' head that he's at least no threat to him. And, apparently, judging from this admission, it's worked. 

Like he said before, this is the bare minimum of what makes even a semi-healthy relationship. But it's a start. 

Once they're settled back at home with the small amount of Stiles' gifts they could actually fit into the car (none of which Stiles has even looked at yet, much less actually opened), Derek takes it upon himself to finally get some of the questions that have been bothering him since first picking Stiles up out of that orphanage answered. If Stiles trusts Derek now, even a little bit, he should be able to pick at the pieces of his past that have kept Derek awake some nights wondering. 

As Stiles is taking his pajamas out from their designated drawer, Derek pointedly clears his throat. “You said Scott lived next to your -” for some reason, he can't force the word _owner_ out. The thought of someone claiming ownership over Stiles at all makes his blood boil. 

“Yeah,” Stiles says while pulling his shirt up and over his head, baring the tiger for Derek to scan his eyes over. The thing looks angry, if Derek had to assign any adjective to it. Teeth bared and muzzle scrunched in agitation. “I spent a lot of time in the backyard, and he was obsessed with trying to grow cucumbers in his garden, so.” 

A couple beats of silence pass. Stiles sliding a new shirt on, Derek tapping one finger on his upturned knee from his spot on the bed. “How was – I mean – when you were -”

Stiles turns and gives him a thin smile, understanding exactly what Derek's getting at. “She wasn't so bad,” he scratches at his cheek and squints his eyes, like remembering something unsavory. “She just kinda treated me like a dog.” 

Derek frowns. “Like -”

“Like, dog stuff. She put me in a cage at night, and gave me sugar cubes for bringing her the newspaper,” he shrugs his shoulders like _no big deal_ , fastening his pajama pants around his bony hips without a care in the world. 

Derek, on the other hand, is absolutely and completely fucking _horrified_ , and makes no attempts at hiding it from his face. He's heard about things like that before – and worse – but actually hearing it out of the mouth of someone who lived through it is enough to make Derek feel like he's crawling out of his skin. What's really so fucking disturbing about this isn't the information itself, isn't even the thought of a younger Stiles sleeping on the ground in a cage without a blanket, but it's how he says it. Like, in his mind, this is just something that happens sometimes. Fourteen year old kids get locked up in cages and eh, no big deal. 

When Stiles looks up and sees the expression on Derek's face, his features harden – as if he's put off by the idea of being pitied. “Could've been worse.” There's defensiveness in his tone. 

Yes. It could have been. It could have been so much worse, it could have been unimaginable. But what kind of life is to to look around and think _at least they don't beat me, at least they don't force themselves on me. I'm lucky._

And there's that word again – _at least_. 

At some point, _at least_ just can't be enough anymore. 

Trying to school his face back down into something less disgusted, Derek switches to what he thinks will be a more light-hearted topic. “She liked tigers, I guess.” 

Stiles scrunches his face up in confusion. “What?” 

“On your back,” Derek blinks. “The tattoo. It's a tiger.” 

Just like that, all the color drains out of Stiles' face, and he looks pointedly away. All the nonchalance from before is gone, as if Derek just brought up the worst possible thing he could've ever said. “Never asked what it was,” he mumbles, climbing up into bed and turning his back to Derek underneath the covers. A clear sign of _end of discussion_. 

Befuddled at how quickly Stiles' mood soured, he stares at Stiles' back and wonders why _this_ was the most upsetting part of the conversation for him. How could a tattoo be worse for him to think about and remember than everything else he just said? 

Then again. Derek has never fully considered what those tattoo sessions on humans would actually be like. If Stiles was thirteen when he first got taken into that wolf's home like it says on his papers, then most likely he got that tattoo at around the same time. Dragging a thirteen year old fresh out of factory slave-labor, strapping him down, offering him sugar cubes for every ten minutes he manages to go without crying (and from the size of it, all the colors and details, it must've taken _hours_ ) – traumatized might be a good word for what Stiles is. Like any person going through _hours_ of pain for no fucking reason would be. 

Wolves don't typically think of humans having that range of emotional depth. 

Derek sits there, _seething_ , for what feels like hours. Even long after Stiles' breathing evens out with sleep and he starts doing that weird REM sleeptalk thing he does ( _no more scorpions in the pillows, no more scorpions in the pillows_ ), Derek sits there, clenching and unclenching his fists. Thinking about how easy it would be to look at Stiles' papers and find out the name and address of the wolf that did that to him. How _easy_ it would be to find her and rip her throat straight out of her neck. 

He doesn't get very much sleep that night.

\----

“You know how to work the television, right?”

Stiles gives him a blank look. “Yes, Derek.” 

“Okay,” he says, hands on his hips, gazing around the room. “And – all the food in the freezer is microwavable. You remember how to use that, right?” 

“Press start button,” Stiles deadpans, eyes sliding to the television where a woman is sauteeing mushrooms. “I think I can handle that.” 

He scrutinizes every last inch of the living room, looking for something hazardous that Stiles could get himself wrapped into and hurt himself – a loose wire, or a lamp that might tip over and shatter the bulb and cut his hand open, or an unlocked window that someone could crawl in through. “And you have my phone number -”

“Are you leaving me here alone for the rest of my life,” Stiles interrupts, looking back from the TV to glare in Derek's direction, “or are you just going to be gone for a couple of hours?” 

“I'm just saying,” Derek hisses, picking his keys up off their spot on the hook on the wall by the front door and frowning. “The house has a pretty good alarm system, and the locks are all were-proof, but if someone -”

“Oh, my _God_ ,” Stiles tips his head back and drapes his neck over the back of the couch, throwing his hands in the air. “What's the worst that could happen in two hours? Someone comes in and pets me to death?” 

Derek gives Stiles a completely unamused glare. Ever since the night of his birthday party, Stiles has at least been more chatty. Derek has yet to decide if that's a good thing or not. Every other sentence out of his mouth is either sarcastic or just kind of annoying – which, Derek didn't expect that he and Stiles would be very best friends any time soon, but would it kill him to take something seriously? For once? Everything Derek says is an opportunity for Stiles to roll out a punchline or a sarcastic jab. It's literally a miracle that he's survived wolves for so long. 

This is the first time that Stiles is being left completely alone to his own devices, maybe for his entire life. He imagines that if his _owner_ ever left him by himself, she locked him up in a cage for the day. So it's kind of a big fucking deal. He can't very well take Stiles with him, because the conversation he's going to have with his mother, the first since that party, is sure to be a real _fun time_ , all sarcasm intended, and the very last thing he wants to do is subject Stiles to that shit. 

So. Home alone seemed like a better option. But Derek is starting to rethink it. 

“Maybe you should just come after all,” he says now, chewing anxiously on his thumb – something he thinks he's done _never_ in his life. “You can sit out in the lobby with Erica -”

“I'm in a locked house,” Stiles interrupts, flipping the channel to something about horses. “Not in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of bloodthirsty sharks.” 

Derek thinks about how in every single house as far as the eye can see, there's nothing but werewolves. How Stiles can't see that he's literally a tiny little mino surrounded by sharks is absolutely beyond Derek. 

“Okay...” Derek agrees slowly, backing towards the front door without taking his eyes off the human perched on the couch. “If there's an emergency, Laura lives closest, and her number is on the fridge -”

“Okay!” 

“And if you're feeling scared, you can call me, and I'll come right back to -”

“If you don't walk out that door right _now_...”

“I'm leaving,” Derek says, pulling the door open. He casts one last glance over his shoulder to find Stiles completely engrossed in Say Yes to the Dress, frowns anxiously. “I'm going right now.” 

The entire hour drive to his mother's office is spent with Derek imagining all the possible ways that Stiles could get himself into trouble. He hasn't done anything particularly stupid yet, but God only knows what kinds of things he could think to do with no one around to see him. Eighteen straight years of constantly having someone over his shoulder has to make him stir crazy. He's probably been waiting for a chance to fuck around with the garbage disposal – Derek has caught him on more than one occasion staring down into it with amazement as a banana peel gets sucked up in there. 

He has to inherently know that sticking his hand down there would be a bad idea. Right? That's just common sense. 

This is the mantra that Derek repeats to himself again and again. When he thinks about Stiles trying to take the laptop into the bath tub with him, when he thinks about Stiles accidentally leaving the gas running on the stove, Stiles sticking a fork into a socket, Stiles putting his hand inside the waffle iron while it's on – it's just common sense. Stiles isn't stupid. 

When he gets to his mother's office, followed by a sinister chirp of _she's been waiting for you!!_ from Erica, it's pretty easy to forget about all of his Stiles anxieties. 

The look that his mom gives him the second he's inside and sitting down could melt the paint off the side of a house. This is exactly why he didn't want to bring Stiles along. His mother at any given point in a day is hard enough to deal with, but her when she's angry...

There aren't any pleasantries exchanged, no _how's Stiles doing_ ; she just launches right into it.

“Do you have any idea,” she begins, voice menacing, “what people are saying?” 

Derek can't imagine how much people have had to say in three measly little days, but she says this like someone's called Stiles a terrorist that's planning on blowing up the White House. “Well -”

She holds her finger out and Derek snaps his jaw shut. 

“I cannot believe you would directly disobey me like that. In _public_. About something so important to my entire campaign.” 

“Well that's all the matters, right?” Derek hisses caustically, looking away from her eyes. “Your campaign. Nevermind what either Stiles or I want.” 

“What you and Stiles should _want_ -” her voice is rising – not a good sign, “is to do anything, anything at all to get me into office, Derek!”

“And that includes taking away his one and only friend? How does _that_ fucking work?” 

She huffs angrily through her nose and leans over her desk, shaking her head at Derek like she can't believe she raised this person sitting in front of her. “You think I don't know that these methods are wrong?” 

Derek is put off by that one – that's exactly what he's been thinking actually. He opens his mouth to retort, but doesn't know what to say. 

“After spending my entire life working in politics, I know how dirty I have to deal. I'm willing to do anything to keep out a scandal – and if that means keeping that stupid beta away from Stiles to keep people from thinking they're _fucking_ ,” hearing his mother has always made him shrink back, “even if it makes him sad, then I'll do it.” 

“That's not fair,” Derek says. It's the only thing there is to say. “That's just – that's so fucking _unfair_ to him, just like this entire thing.” 

“Fair.” She repeats the word like it's a foreign concept to her. It most likely is. “Fair would be hundreds of humans getting sent back to their families. Which is exactly what I'm going to do if I win this – but I can't do that if you're not on my side -”

“But _Stiles_ doesn't get to go home,” Derek cuts her off before she goes on one of her tirades about _justice_ and _the right thing_. “Stiles doesn't get to be anything but your god damn pawn. Is that about the size of it?”

She clicks her nails on top of her desk and fixes Derek with a hard look. Not necessarily stern, or motherly, but cold. Her eyes stare straight through Derek like she's not even really seeing her son there, but just seeing another person for her to manipulate into the position she wants them in. “Sacrifices have to be made for change to come.” 

Derek runs his hands up and down his face, so angry he can't even fucking see straight. “Stiles isn't a _sacrifice_ , mom, he's -” a person. A _person_ is what he is. 

“He is to me,” she says. Like it's nothing to her. “Don't act like I'm some villain in all of this. He's living lightyears better than he has been his entire life because of me. You'd think he could show some moderate level of gratitude for the things I've done for him.” 

At that point, Derek doesn't even know what to say anymore. There's nothing, not a single thing he could say to ever change his mother's mind, or to make her see that what she's doing isn't just wrong, it's horrible. It's not just dirty dealing in politics, it's fucking around with someone's actual _life_ to get what she wants. And Stiles never had a say in it. He didn't choose any of this. She's never going to get that. Never. 

There's no point in having the conversation with her anymore. His entire body drains of agitation, as he flops back into his seat and shakes his head. Resignation. Just like Stiles when they first picked him up out of the orphanage. Trapped, with nowhere to go. That's what Derek is, here. Stuck alongside Stiles in his mother's fucking mindgames. 

“I need you,” she points at him, “on my side with this. Whatever Stiles thinks, he can think all he wants.” The unspoken there is that he has no power whatsoever, and she's made sure of that. In spite of all the speeches she makes about giving humans the power to choose, she's stripping Stiles of every last bit of say he has. “But without you on my side, worse things will happen to him. You get that. You _need_ to get that. This entire thing is going to be a sinking fucking ship if you can't do as I say.” 

Maybe Derek does get that. What will happen to Stiles if this all goes to shit and people find out it isn't real? What will they do to him? The federal government, an entity that probably scares Stiles more than anything else in the world, a boogeyman that's responsible for the loss of his childhood, will come in and take him away again. And where he'll go from there – God, Derek doesn't even want to think about it. 

The wreck they'll be in if this ship ever really did sink is too much for Derek to think about. In a way, he guesses from the first time he met Stiles, they've been going down, down, down, lost in too much wreckage to ever find purchase on a raft. 

“Okay,” Derek croaks. No choice. How many times throughout this entire thing has his mother known exactly what she was doing? Exactly which corner she'd have Derek backed into if he ever tried to resist? 

She leans back in her own chair and looks somewhat smug. Derek feels like wringing her fucking neck. “Good. I don't want to see that beta ever again,” she warns, her voice low. “You see to it that Stiles doesn't either.” 

Derek has to take a minute sitting out in the parking garage. He sits there, hands on the steering wheel, staring blankly out at the concrete wall in front of him. In a last ditch effort, he tries to think of some way to get himself out of this – even more importantly, he tries to think of some way to get Stiles out of this. 

When nothing comes to him, nothing at all, he just sits there. It's the kind of quiet that comes along with realizing you've lost control of something that _should_ be in your control. Like, for example, Derek's own fucking life. No matter which way he slices it, in a little over two months, he's going to be married to a human who never had any say in the matter. The thought makes something sink, deep into his stomach, and for the very first time, he considers something about this that he hadn't before. 

Permanence. 

In some twisted part of his brain, Derek has been thinking about this entire ordeal in the short term. As in, he just has to get through it and then it'll be over and he can pick right back up where he left off. Getting drunk at parties and accidentally making out with his cousins – it's not great, but it sounds like a dream compared to what he's been forced into now. He thought he'd be done with it. He thought that Stiles was temporary, that all of this would be. He doesn't know why he thought that. 

Marriage and mating might be two different things, but they tend to come hand in hand. You don't marry someone you're never going to fucking mate, (though, plenty of wolves mate humans they never plan on marrying just to have a compliant toy around to fuck that can't mate them back – but that's another story.) If Derek tries to marry Stiles without mating him, people are going to notice. They'll notice he doesn't have the bite scars in his neck. And it's even possible that his mother will make him if he tries to not do it – of all the disgusting thoughts he's had in his life, that just tops the fucking charts. 

Derek can't do that. He can't fucking do that to Stiles. The thought alone, holding him down, forcing him to – Derek just can't do that. He _can't_.

He might have to. 

Even that aside, it's not like Derek can very well marry Stiles for a month or two, until the statement has been made, and then divorce him. His mother simply won't have it. As far as Derek knows, he's going to be married to Stiles for the rest of his life, carted to event after event for a photo-op to show everyone that humans can be just like wolves. 

In a lot of ways, they are a sinking ship. Forced to go down together.

\----

Derek knew he shouldn't have left Stiles home alone. He should've fucking listened to his intuition and called Cora to come and sit with him or something – loathe as Stiles would be to get a babysitter, how much he'd fucking complain about it, that's exactly what Derek should have done.

That's what he's thinking when he pulls open his front door and is met with the acrid stench of human _fear_. Thick, pulsing, all-encompassing. Stiles isn't on the couch where Derek left him; there's a microwave dish that's still half full of macaroni and cheese, an open bag of cheetos, and the television droning on and on about cupcakes in the background – but no Stiles. 

“Stiles!” Derek slams the door behind him and is instantly in alert mode, scanning the living room with his wolf eyes, his heart pounding inside of his chest. Never should have fucking left him alone, stupid idea, mistake. 

He's just about to tear up the steps to rip apart the bedroom looking for the human, when Stiles' voice, filled with panic, calls to him from the kitchen. “In here! In here, in here, in here -” he sounds petrified. 

In Derek's mind, he's imagining Stiles bleeding to death on the ground after slicing his arm open. Even though there's no stench of pain or blood in the air, Derek's mind just goes there. He imagines that Stiles is being held captive by one of the Argents, deadset on using their weakest link against them just to win a stupid fucking election. Someone with a chainsaw having tied Stiles to a chair threatening to cut his fingers off one by one, a wolf with their hand around his neck about to snap it – that's what anyone would think. With that smell and the sound of Stiles' panicked voice, anyone would fucking think that. 

Instead, Derek storms into the kitchen and sees – well. None of that. 

Stiles is perched on top of the counter, bracing himself with one hand splayed behind him on the wall, staring pointedly at a spot on the floor. He has a rolled up magazine in his hand, as a weapon, and Derek zeroes in on it and immediately thinks _obviously he needs self-defense classes_. Not that he could ever have any chance of learning how to fight off a werewolf, but _really_? A rolled up magazine as a weapon? Against who? The tooth fairy? 

Once Stiles catches sight of Derek frozen in place in the doorway, he breathes out a sigh of relief, heartbeat evening out only barely, and says, “thank God.” 

Derek scans the room for an attacker – sees none – and takes a single step into the room, confused out of his mind and still reeling from thinking that Stiles was in grave danger. “What the hell is going on?” 

Stiles looks Derek square in the eye, and says, _dead serious_ , “are you afraid of spiders?” 

Every last bit of panic drains out of Derek's body and he almost laughs. That's what this is about then. He chances another look at the spot that Stiles was staring at before, and, sure enough, there's a smallish brown spider sitting there, minding its own business. 

Derek walks into the kitchen and holds his arm out, motioning with two fingers in Stiles' direction. “Come on. Get down from there before you fall.” 

Stiles casts his eyes over to the spider and looks like he's about to refuse, clutching onto his magazine even tighter. 

“I'm going to kill the spider,” Derek promises with a huff, “just get down.” 

Reluctantly, Stiles drops one leg down over the counter and holds his own arm out towards Derek, clutching into his jacket with skinny fingers. The second his feet are on the ground, he's wrapped himself against Derek's back, hands fisted in his coat, like he's using him as a fucking shield. “Make sure you kill it,” he warns, voice low, as if they're deciphering a bomb instead of killing a little insect. “Don't let it get away. It'll come back for me.”

“Spiders don't have memories like that,” Derek says factually, even though he has next to no idea what kind of memories spiders do or don't have. It just seems like the right thing to say, if Stiles is really that terrified about a spider being vindictive and coming for him while he sleeps. Though, what a spider would do to him Derek isn't sure – build a web around him? Gee. Horrifying. 

With Stiles plastered to his back, he walks forward and focuses his eyes in on the tiny thing on the ground. The fact that this was the cause of all the trouble really does make Derek feel like laughing. Of all the things on planet earth that Stiles has to be afraid of, other werewolves, Lydia Martin, Talia Hale and the Argents, it's spiders that seem to be the only thing to fully terrify him properly. 

When he lifts his foot up to squish it, Stiles digs his fingers in deeper to Derek's shirt like he's half afraid the thing is going to leap up and get him. Derek huffs a laugh, and kills it. Just like that. 

Even after it's definitely dead, Stiles clings on for dear life. “Stiles,” Derek says, “it's dead.” 

“Okay,” he says back, loosening his grip minutely. 

“I guess I should buy some repellent,” is the only thing Derek can think to say. Spiders don't particularly bother him so he's never given much thought to it – but he can't have Stiles and his arachnophobia flying into panic and climbing all over furniture every time one of them appears. Since it's summer, there'll be more. 

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, finally letting go completely with a sigh of relief. “There were thousands of them back home. One time I woke up with one on my face,” he side-eyes Derek for a second. “Anyone else would be scared of them too, if that happened to them.” 

“I'm not judging,” Derek says. Besides, he's way too focused on the fact that this is the first time Stiles has said anything concrete about life in the sanctuaries. It's not exactly the kind of thing he would expect to hear – there are spiders everywhere? Some sanctuary – but it does paint a picture. They're probably somewhere out in the forests, then. Derek imagines tall trees and lots of nuts and berries to eat. 

Stiles collects himself by running his hands down the front of his t-shirt, where a patch of cheese from the macaroni he was eating has stained it. “What did your mom say?” 

Derek sighs through his nose and walks away to take a seat the kitchen table. Stiles watches this with calculating eyes, flicking downwards to look at the mess of former spider on the ground before looking back to Derek. Stiles knows good and well that half the reason Derek went over there was to try and resolve the obvious issue of whether or not Stiles would actually be allowed to see Scott. He's been thinking about it non-stop ever since the party, most likely, wondering when Scott's going to be able to come over so they can have an actual conversation instead of just some hurried thing after Scott went and party-crashed. 

And now Derek has to tell Stiles that he's not allowed to see him. The thought of having to deliver news so shitty to Stiles is abhorrent. He doesn't want to deny Stiles any single thing that he wants, really, but especially not this. All Derek can think about is the way Stiles had said that Scott has been the only real friend that he's made since leaving home. 

A friend out here in the shark tank is something anyone would desperately need. How is Derek supposed to tell Stiles he can't have that? 

Well. Derek guesses that he doesn't have to do that. Not if he plays his cards right. 

In the long run, this might turn out to be a horrible decision. One of his worst. All the drunken decisions he's made in the world will pale in comparison to this one – but he just can't look Stiles in his huge brown eyes and say _no_. He literally, physically can't. Not about this. 

Sucking in a deep breath, Derek pinches the bridge of his nose and prays that this is a good thing he's doing. Letting Stiles see his friend should outweigh him going behind his mother's back. Right? That's how the universe works. All good deeds get paid off. It's best to think of it that way. 

“We can invite him over,” he says slowly – and even though he's got his eyes screwed shut he can hear Stiles' sharp intake of breath. “...but we've gotta be – um. Discrete.” 

Discrete. As in, sneaking around. With Derek's life under a fucking microscope, it should be a pretty fun game of cat and mouse. 

Stiles puts both of his hands on Derek's forearm and shakes him a little. “Thank you,” he says. Derek pops his eyes open to look him in the face, and he nearly melts at seeing the smile that Stiles is giving him. “Derek. _Thank you_.” 

“Yeah,” Derek says back in a tight voice. “No problem.” 

Big problem, actually.

\----

“I don't like him.” Kira Yukimura, sporting her trademark pigtails and sunny disposition even in the face of such harsh criticism, says this resolutely into the camera, and Derek huffs. “He looks like trouble.”

“Considering he broke in to the Hale estate,” Isaac drawls back at her, leaning back in his seat to cast another glance at the photo on the screen behind him, “I'd say most likely he is.” 

“And,” she points a finger in the air, “I don't like how he touched Stiles. As if he's never been told not to grab another person's human like that!” 

“Stiles looks like he knew him well enough.” The picture behind their heads changes, this one of Scott and Stiles leaning into each other while Derek stands off to the side fucking drinking as usual, with his free hand shoved into his pocket. Derek decides then and there that this is the worst picture of him that Kira and Isaac have ever dragged out – which is really saying something. The number of pictures of Derek making a fool of himself that these two have put on national television must be astronomical at this point. But this picture is just – it's just worse than all the rest. By a landslide. 

Maybe it's because Stiles is there. Or, more likely, maybe it's because in all the photos of Derek and Stiles together, Stiles looks complacent at absolute best, but there with Scott he looks...different. Better. 

“Derek didn't,” Kira shoots back with a conviction that makes it sound like she's on Derek's team. “The only thing keeping Derek from killing that kid was the fact that he didn't want to accidentally claw Stiles' face off.” 

Stiles turns to Derek from his spot on the couch, feet perched up on the coffee table, back settled comfortably into the cushions. He raises his eyebrows and says, “is that right?” 

Derek glares back at him. “Turn this garbage off. I do not understand how you can stand to watch this.” 

And he has _been_ watching it. Every fucking day at six o'clock on the dot, Stiles is on the couch, listening to Isaac Lahey be a sarcastic dickbag and Kira be obnoxiously perky about every thing that crosses her path. He watches with rapt attention, like this is the greatest show on earth, in spite of the fact that more often than not, Derek and Stiles are the exclusive topic of discussion. Ever since pictures came out from Stiles' party, it's all those two can talk about. Derek hasn't exactly spent any time looking elsewhere, at tabloids or on the internet, to see if anyone else is as interested – but if Kira and Isaac are still going over the same things over and over again (Stiles' melancholy attitude, Derek's arm around Stiles' shoulders, the way Stiles shied away from anyone that wasn't him), Derek would guess that people aren't talking about much else, either. 

“Don't you think it's cool being on TV?” 

Derek can think of nothing less cool than his personal life being incorrectly analyzed and dissected by tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb over here; but, then again, that might only be because, for him, Kira and Isaac and their gossip segment are just the same things he's dealt with his entire life, just from being born a Hale. Talia Hale built an empire on timeshares, and because she was pretty and had a good looking husband to boot, got A-list famous and dragged all her kids down along with her before getting into politics to _save the world_. Seeing his own face on screen is old hat to him, at this point. There's no novelty there. 

But there certainly is for Stiles. Derek wonders if Stiles ever had pipe dreams about being rich and famous while he was locked up in a cage in a basement somewhere. Maybe that's the only way he stayed sane. 

In a way, it's almost cute that all Stiles thinks is _neato!!_ instead of seeing all this fanfare for what it really is – simply another place for him to be turned into a marketable item so someone can sell him off. It's most likely best that he doesn't see it that way, at all. 

“I don't get why people think Stiles and Irrelevant Mc-Who-the-Fuck are having some kind of, like, _affair_ ,” a photo of Scott and Stiles hugging pops up, now, and Stiles laughs quietly to himself. Like this is _cartoons_ to him. “Any human would be as fucking dumb as people say they are to choose some no-name kid over Derek Hale.” 

“Right!” Kira agrees enthusiastically. “He's rich, he's hot...”

Derek squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his palms up and down his face again and again. “Stiles, _please_. Must we?” It's like the Derek Hale Torture Chamber Hour. 

“I just like knowing what they say about me,” Stiles defends meekly as he picks up the remote – an item he's monopolized since realizing Derek wasn't going to claw him for touching it. 

Christ, if Derek had his say, he'd never know a damn thing that people say about him – he'd much rather live in blissful fucking ignorance, thank you very much. 

But, then again. It would depend on who else was listening. Half the reason that Derek hates this show so much is because Stiles hears all the shitty rumors about Derek's life – most of them unfortunately true. Even if Stiles doesn't look like he could give a fuck about Derek getting drunk all the time or Derek hooking up with so-and-so, it just _bothers_ Derek that he hears it. Like he's getting the wrong impression. 

That's something that Derek always thinks about, actually. Is there someone, somewhere out there, that Stiles thinks would be watching this? Is there someone that Stiles thinks would be disappointed if something negative came out about him? 

Ten minutes into another show that Stiles has found – something about wallpapers and hardwood floors – Derek hears the telltale sounds of a car pulling into his driveway, then slipping privately into the garage like he instructed Scott to do. He taps Stiles on the shoulder and announces as such, to be met with one of Stiles' rare genuine smiles before the human shoots up and moves to glare out the window excitedly. Derek tries to hold onto that facial expression and that smell rolling off of him in waves as a reminder of why he's doing something so inherently fucking stupid. It'll be worth it, in the long run, if it makes Stiles so happy, less miserable with how his life is turning out. 

That's really all that matters here. Derek getting his skin ripped off piece by piece if his mother ever finds out about him directly disobeying an order – well. That's neither here nor there. It's pretty black and white to Derek that letting Stiles see his friend is just the right thing to do, no matter what his mother has to say about all of it. 

When Scott McCall comes waltzing in through Derek's back door with an _Argent_ , there starts to be a lot of fucking gray area in Derek's decision making processes. 

Before Stiles even has a chance to step forward, Derek is pulling him back by his shoulder – ignoring the meep of surprise – and growls in Scott and the Argent's direction, as menacingly and threateningly as possible. 

Scott holds his hands up in innocence, and Derek can see it written all over his face that he knows exactly why Derek is upset right about now. He knew that Derek wouldn't be okay with this, and he went and did it anyway, in spite of the fact that Derek has really fucking stuck his neck out for this stupid idiot on more than one god damn occasion. 

Stiles starts asking a question, and Derek knows it'll be something along the lines of _what are you doing, why are you acting like this_ – so Derek cuts him off to get right to the point. “That's Allison Argent.” 

With pathetic shoves, or _attempts_ at shoves, Stiles tries maneuvering his way past Derek. He's nowhere near as strong as he needs to be to get Derek's arm out of his way, so he winds up just stumbling backwards the harder forwards he pushes himself. 

“Derek, wait -” Allison starts, and Derek doesn't even want to fucking hear it. Though Derek and his family's real enemies might be Kate and Gerard specifically, Allison is trouble just by association. She has stood complacent and silent in the background of far too many of Kate's disturbing speeches about _maintaining and balance and keeping the humans in their place_. Derek associates her with hatred and discrimination, and, as such, danger for Stiles. All his wolf can think or hear in his head when he sees her is alarm bells going off, screaming _protect the human_. 

He barely even looks at her. Instead, he focuses on Scott. The lesser of two evils. “You brought an _Argent_ into my _house_ -” 

“I can explain -” Allison tries again, and Derek snarls at her. It's loud and full of enough mal-intent that she takes a step back into the same door she just walked in through, eyes turning gold on instinct. Scott shoulders his way in front of her protectively, baring his teeth, starting up on a snarl of his own. 

It's moments away from turning into a full on brawl – a group fucking brawl. Two against one. Scott and Derek snarling at each other, Allison frantically trying to say whatever it that she could possibly have to say by coming here into a Hale's fucking house with her own family name. Christ, Derek is honestly about to push Stiles into the pantry with all the uncooked macaroni and slam the door closed so he won't get caught in the crossfire. 

Right before Derek does exactly that, Stiles flicks Derek in the shell of his ear. “Stop that,” he says. It's obvious that he's not used to bossing wolves around, not even Derek who he's gotten more comfortable with. It's not nearly as commanding as he probably hoped it would be, but it's surprising to hear him at all. Also surprising to have a second flick smack into his cheek. His growling halts for a second so he can turn to look at him, jaw dropped in confusion, and he finds Stiles standing there looking about 50/50 terrified/annoyed. 

He flicks his gaze anxiously to where Derek's claws have come out, but he sets his jaw like he's convincing himself to not be afraid. Maybe reminding himself that Derek has proven he'd never use them on Stiles, not in a million fucking years. 

“Stiles,” Derek begins, voice even and calm like he's trying to explain a difficult equation to him. “That's -”

“I know who she is, dipshit.” Dipshit? Since when does Stiles know the word _dipshit_? “It's Scott's girlfriend.” 

Girlfriend. Girlfriend. _Girlfriend_!? 

“You knew about this?” Derek demands, rounding on Stiles with narrowed eyes. Stiles only takes a half a step back, eyes widening, before he pushes himself back forwards again and lifting his chin in the air defiantly. “You knew that he's been fraternizing with the -”

“Stop,” Stiles says again, putting his hand up. “Listen to me.” 

Derek retracts his claws and dims his eyes, casting one last nasty glance in Allison and Scott's direction before focusing his full attention back onto Stiles. 

“They've helped me more than you're aware of,” his voice is low, quiet, like he's trying to keep the conversation private between he and Derek even though Allison and Scott could hear even if he whispered right into Derek's ear. “Both Allison and Scott. Allison's not like Kate.” Fingers reach out and run down the length of Derek's forearm, like he's placating the beast from going full-feral. “Just like you're not. Right?” 

Derek sets his jaw. 

“Allison and Kate aren't the same just like you and your mother aren't the same,” he raises his chin again and fixes Derek with a stern look. “How'd you feel if people always only associated you with what your mom thinks instead of just yourself?” 

There's no wiggle room to argue on that one. Even though people probably most likely really do think that Derek agrees with each and every thing that his mother says, it's just not the fucking truth. And to think that people really believe that makes him want to change his last name and bleach his hair and put in contact lenses to disassociate himself from the Hale family altogether. 

Derek's been standing in the background during his mother's speeches, as well. And he wasn't exactly running up to tear the microphone out of her hands to stop her from brainwashing everyone into thinking they were going to help the humans at all. 

So, maybe he's hypocritical. The realization has all the fight draining out of him right then and there underneath Stiles' fingers, shoulders hunching and breath coming out in a pant. “Okay,” he agrees slowly, mostly just for Stiles' benefit. When Stiles gives him a thin smile, Derek considers that job well done. “But one wrong move,” he warns Allison, jutting his chin in her direction and curling his upper lip, “and I'm sending you out.” 

“Fine,” she says quickly, her own eyes dimming as she shoves Scott to get him out of a defensive pose. “That's fair. It's – um...nice to meet you.” 

Derek nearly laughs in her face. Nice. Meeting an Argent, no matter how many kudos of good word Stiles sends their way, is a lot like encountering a fucking skunk to Derek. Unappealing, mildly nervewracking, and leaves a horrible scent in its wake. 

The absolute second that Derek steps out of Stiles' way, Allison is holding her arms out and Stiles is walking right into them like he's done it a thousand times before, fitting his chin on her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist. Scott watches fondly, and Derek, again, feels like the third wheel. Out of place. 

“Look at you,” Allison smiles when she pulls Stiles back to glance up and down his body. “You look like you've been eating actual food!” The way other people might say _you've been getting some sun!!_ , she says this. Derek remembers pretty good and well what Stiles looked like at the orphanage, and that was bad enough. 

But something tells Derek that the last time Allison laid eye on Stiles in person, back when he had that personal owner, Stiles was much worse for wear. 

Scott, apparently, isn't quite ready to leave the whole ordeal behind him. He fixes Derek with a look that suggests he's about to throw a real zinger, and hisses, “you're one to talk about who is or isn't a threat to Stiles, anyway. Considering you're _forcing_ him to marry you.” 

Scott's not nearly the simpleton he seems to be. He managed to dodge security and crawl in through a window at Derek's mother's house, and now he's managed to see clean through to what's really going on between Derek and Stiles where other people have failed to do the same. 

There's nothing that Derek can really say to refute that. He just stands there, face coloring in shame, and looks away. Scott has a serious point. 

Stiles disagrees. “Derek's never forced me to do anything,” he challenges in an even tone of voice, turning away from Allison to give Derek a long look. “He's my friend. Talia's the one forcing _us_. Not just me.” 

Bewildered and surprised, Derek opens his mouth, can't think of anything to say, and then closes it. That's another thing he's been trying to convince Stiles of, seeing no hope in sight, and there Stiles goes – being smart and adept at searching out who his real enemies are. 

Deflated, and maybe slightly embarrassed, Scott shrinks back. “Oh. So – he's not -”

“He's my _friend_ ,” Stiles repeats with much more authority, like he's trying to drill the idea home. There's no uptick in his heart. It's the truth. Stiles really and truly believes Derek as a friend to him, and the thought has annoying little butterflies forming in the pit of Derek's stomach. 

Before, all Derek wanted was bare fucking minimum. Just let Stiles know that Derek doesn't want to hurt him, just like Stiles know that he's going to be safe here – the idea of them being friends was shot down weeks ago when Stiles had yelled at him in the parking lot after the encounter with Kate. 

But now, it's back again. Concrete, and real. 

Derek begrudgingly starts cooking the dinner he had planned anyway, still feeling about ten different shades of wrong about hosting an Argent around in his house, letting her lean forward and run her fingers through Stiles' hair; he half expects to turn around every five seconds and find her with a knife pushed up against his jugular, cackling menacingly in the way that he's heard Kate do on more than one occasion. It's irrational, and he knows it is – but he just doesn't trust her. 

Stiles, though, appears to trust her almost implicitly. The same way he does Scott. The same way he might _almost_ be starting to trust Derek. 

“Steak and macaroni and cheese?” Scott's voice comes from the left of him, and when Derek looks over, he's right there, leaning up against the back of the counter with a glass of water in his hand. “That's an odd combination.” 

“Stiles' favorites,” Derek says back in a gruff voice, hyper focusing on sprinkling the shredded cheese into the roux he's making. “This is his night, so.” 

There's a silence between them. Scott leaning back against the counter watching and listening to Stiles and Allison enjoy an episode of some cupcake show together, Derek glancing over his shoulder again and again to make sure that that's all they're doing over there on the couch. 

“Allison used to think like Kate,” he says after a minute or two, watching Derek stir his cheese sauce again and again. “I remember that. She had this pet human – sorry,” he corrects, flicking his eyes over to where Stiles is sitting as if he could hear him from all the way over here, “there was _a_ human that lived in her house, and I remember she used to cut her hair all the time like she was a Barbie doll.”

Derek grips the handle of his spoon, but doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what he would even begin to say to that. The Hales have never, not for as long as Talia has been the head of it and Derek has been alive, had a _pet human_. The Argents, however, collect them like trophies. It's no surprise whatsoever to hear that Allison had one that was just for her when she was growing up. But that doesn't make it any less disturbing to hear the specific details of it. 

“I bet she would've grown up to mindlessly believe everything that her grandfather taught her,” he blinks a few times, shaking his head. “Then she met Stiles.” 

Derek tries to avoid getting wrapped up in the conversation. He doesn't want to become all buddy/buddy with Scott McCall, and he doesn't want to hear about the tearjerking story of Allison waking up and realizing she's been abusing living human beings for god knows how many years of her life – he strains the macaroni, and purses his lips, convincing himself he doesn't want to know. 

But, since Stiles is involved, it's almost like he doesn't really have a choice. “What about Stiles,” he begins, voice low, “was so different than the humans at the Argent's?” 

Scott sighs through his nose and then stares blankly at the wall directly across from him, swishing the water around in his glass for a few seconds without saying anything. Like he's remembering something he's been pressing deep down into his subconscious for a very long time. “He wasn't treated like a Barbie doll,” Scott answers quietly. 

There's nothing specific in that sentence at all. No context clues. But something about the way he says it is absolutely fucking chilling to Derek. From the way that Stiles had talked about his owner the one time he'd brought it up, Derek had assumed she was a bad person. But he thought it started and ended with being locked up in a cage and fed treats like an animal. 

To hear Scott use that tone of voice, it sounds like there's a lot more to it than Stiles might ever be willing to admit. And maybe Derek – he doesn't want to know. Some things might be better left unsaid and left in the past, at least until Stiles himself feels like diving into the shipwreck to pull them up out of himself to share on his own terms. 

Behind them, Stiles laughs. For the first time in a long while, Derek is glad Stiles doesn't have any super senses, so he can't hear a word of this conversation. 

“So, you – helped Stiles while he was...” Derek trails off, dropping the macaroni into the cheese sauce. 

“We started sneaking him food,” Scott says, a small smile creeping across his face. “A cucumber here, a slice of turkey there. She used to leave him outside in the backyard, sometimes for days at a time, even in the _winter_ -” he sets his jaw, looks away. He grinds his teeth for a moment or two, shaking his head back and forth. “I guess it's lucky she did, or he might've starved to death without us.” 

Derek drops the spoon out of his hand and into the pot, not caring if the handle lands in the cheesy mess, and grips both hands against the edge of the counter. Breathing in, breathing out. It's like on the full moon when he feels he's about to shift – that's how fucking _angry_ he is. Absolutely livid, like he could walk outside and flip a fucking car over, smash it to bits with nothing but his bare hands. 

It's no wonder Allison changed her mind. It must have been easy for her to convince herself it was all fine when her humans got fed properly and dressed up all nice and pretty. What a fucking shellshock it must've been for her as a kid to walk outside into Scott's backyard on a playdate and see a shivering, starving human standing all alone, waiting for his owner to let him back inside before the night freeze. 

“Any half decent person would change their minds after seeing something like that,” Scott echoes Derek's thoughts exactly. “Even as stupid kids, we knew it was wrong to treat a human like that.” 

Derek loosens up his grip on the counter and takes a deep breath, running his hand across his forehead and clearing his throat to collect himself. Subject change, he thinks. Subject fucking change before he goes Hulk all over everyone and ruins Stiles' time with his friends. “Your mother's a human,” he says matter-of-factly, even though he's still not quite sure. 

“She was mated,” he says like this like it's nothing at all; but living with a truth like that must make you numb to it. “Got knocked up with me, and a got a get-out-of-jail free card. She doesn't quite have the same experiences as Stiles.” 

Derek guesses not. It's not rare for a werewolf to mate a human, but it is incredibly rare for there to be a half-breed child spilling out nine months later. Most wolves who would do something like mate a human against their will take extra precautions to ensure that their humans don't get pregnant – because, like Scott said, it's a get-out-of-jail free card. You give birth to a wolf, you become almost as good as one. Chances are, she had to stay living with the wolf that impregnated her to begin with for as long as she had to before being able to make ends meet on her own from the measly salary they must pay her at the hospital. 

Dinner is finished, now, and has been for a couple of minutes; he's just about to call out to Stiles and Allison to come in and eat, when Scott abruptly grabs onto his forearm and steps into his personal space. 

_Way_ into his personal space. Face right in his. “I just want you to know,” his voice is so fucking quiet that it's almost dangerous, “if you ever hurt him, I will rip your intestines out of your gut and hang you with them.” 

Derek is only surprised for a millisecond before he's schooling his face back down into something just as threatening. “If I ever hurt him, I'd let you.”

\----

Apparently, Stiles having fun and letting him do what he wants for the first time all his life has its consequences. He goes from being content to sit on the couch watching television all day long like it's some incredible luxury he's never been afforded, to barely being able to sit still on the couch for an entire episode of a single show he starts watching. He paces around, stares out the window, opens up the fridge and stares into it for seconds at a time before slamming it closed without touching anything, and, frankly -

Starts driving Derek up a fucking wall. 

Sometimes when Stiles is doing one of his round-the-house pacing sessions, Derek reaches out and latches onto his shirt, pulling him down into a sitting position on the couch and wordlessly dropping a book in his lap. 

This usually keeps his attention for, give or take, half an hour, before he's up and walking again, prowling around for something to get his crafty little hands on. 

Derek has walked in on him trying to microwave a bar of soap, trying to climb up the expensive curtains Derek's mother paid for, trying to nearly overflow the entire bathroom with bubbles by squirting entire bottles of dish soap and shampoo and body wash into the bath tub all at once – all on the same day. It's like his antics get more and more out there the less Derek scolds him for any of it. Like he's testing his limits. 

Which is dangerous. Definitely dangerous. Because Derek really isn't quite sure he has the capability to set limits for Stiles. If he wants to use his knife at the dinner table to meticulously carve _RIP COW_ into his steak before using his fingers to rip the meat apart savagely, Derek doesn't really have the heart to stop him. 

This is quickly becoming a problem.

Derek opens his eyes, and nearly jumps out of his skin. It's a good thing that he's a werewolf and has reflexes fast enough to recognize Stiles' face and not some kind of intruder, because that could have been a blood bath very, very quickly. 

Stiles is hovering over him, the early morning sunlight spilling over his face, frowning. Derek glances at the clock – six am. Derek doesn't usually get up until around eight. Even then, Stiles sometimes has to push him and pull him to start making breakfast. 

They stare at each other for a few seconds. 

“Stiles,” Derek begins slowly, voice sleep-thick. “Are you sleepwalking?”

“No,” he says; so at least he's lucid. “I'm bored.” 

How anyone, any human person, could be bored at six o'clock in the morning is absolutely beyond Derek. Just go back to sleep, then? 

When Derek says as much to Stiles, tries to turn away and close his eyes, the human starts poking him repeatedly in the ribs. Which doesn't bug Derek as it much as it would Derek doing it to Stiles, but it's still fucking annoying to have fucking long, skinny fingers jabbing him in the side of his chest over and over again. 

“I want to go outside,” he says right in Derek's ear, “I want to leave the house. I'm _bored_.” 

Derek sighs. He's been dreading this moment.

For the most part, the last four weeks have been spent in solitary confinement, just he and Stiles locked up in the house not going anywhere. The last place they went publicly together was that party, and nothing else since. The only people they've had over are Scott and Allison, and just that one time. 

In an entire month, Stiles has only left the house once. No wonder he's starting to go stir crazy. But Derek is more than a little bit hesitant to bring Stiles out into public. Chiefly because he's starting to become unpredictable the more comfortable he gets around Derek; sometimes Derek imagines Stiles just bolting in the middle of the grocery store, not understanding that jumping into another person's cart is generally frowned upon in modern, civil societies. 

Although it's debatable whether or not Stiles would feel nearly half as adventurous with other wolves around, Derek's not chancing that kind of a risk. The last thing he needs is Stiles getting himself hurt or clawed because he can't seem to sit still, lately. 

Aside from that, being seen in public period with Stiles is unsavory. The thought of Stiles getting his picture taken without his knowledge, the thought of Stiles being harassed by people yelling his name and crowding him and making him nervous and frightened...

Derek just doesn't want to put Stiles through that. Not yet. He might be more outgoing, but he still goes through fits of melancholy every now and again. Sitting at the kitchen table, meticulously pulling apart a piece of bread instead of eating it, staring blankly out into space like he's thinking about something he'd really rather not be. Or, locking himself up in the bathroom and sitting in there for sometimes an entire hour, not moving. 

Derek doesn't know how to deal with those moments. All he knows for certain is that Stiles doesn't need anything to make this whole thing worse. Least of all other wolves. 

“Where would you want to go?” Derek asks carefully, rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn. 

Stiles gets a look on his face that Derek doesn't think he particularly recognizes as being seen on Stiles' actual face – but he recognizes it from other people. It's not a good expression. Not at all. It's a very, very dangerous expression. Derek's suspicions are indeed confirmed when Stiles says, unbelievably, “I want to drive.” 

“No,” Derek says instantly. The word comes out surprisingly easily, considering all the time Derek's spent saying he'd never be able to say it to Stiles. “Absolutely not.” 

Stiles furrows his brow. “I could learn.” 

“First of all,” Derek sits up in bed, sensing that the time for sleep has long passed – if Stiles is awake, then Derek has to be awake. That's how it works. “...it's illegal.” 

Werewolf law is pretty convinced that humans couldn't understand how a car operates, or how a traffic light or stop sign works, to save their lives. So, yes. It's literally illegal to let a human behind the wheel of a car. 

“Second of all, you'd drive straight into a wall.” 

“I could learn,” Stiles repeats, like he's going to get anywhere with that argument. Derek has no doubts that if Stiles really set his mind to it, he could learn how to drive just as quickly as any werewolf his age could. It's really not rocket science. But that's not the issue. 

The issue is that it's dangerous. And maybe Derek can't say to macaroni and cheese for the fifth night in a row or an endless marathon of reality television, but he sure as shit can say no to something that's only going to get Stiles hurt in the long run. The thought of ever having to take Stiles back to that human hospital makes Derek's skin go cold. He never wants to have to take Stiles there again. 

“It's not happening,” Derek says, testing out the stern voice on Stiles for the first time. Stiles leans back, but otherwise doesn't make any further comment on the matter. Maybe he's just filing it away, leaving that bullet in his chamber for another opportunity. 

“Can you teach me something else?” He asks instead. 

Derek looks at him and sees nothing but open and honest curiosity on his face, so he shrugs. “Within the realm of reason, yes.” 

Derek had been expecting _teach me how to cook real food_ or _teach me how to work the dishwasher_ or just – something concrete, like that. Something that would be maybe a nice boding experience for the two of them without having to dredge up Stiles' shitty and horrible past. What a day that would be like; if for one day Stiles didn't think about what happened to him. Or, what's happening to him now. 

That's what Derek had been expecting. Something simple and maybe even fun. 

Instead, Stiles, no warning whatsoever, launches himself at Derek and smacks their lips together. Even with wolf reflexes, Derek is too fucking stunned to do anything for an entire second. One entire second of Stiles' lips on his, feeling how soft they are against his, how _good_ it feels to be close to him like this – until Derek comes to his senses. 

And knows that it's wrong. 

He grabs Stiles by his shoulders and pushes him away, holding him steady. Subconsciously, he swipes his tongue across his lips and tries to pretend like he's not mapping out the way Stiles _tastes_. 

“Stiles,” he starts, met with a confused and perplexed glare from Stiles himself. “Don't do that.” 

“Why?” He demands, frowning deeply. He tries squirming out of Derek's hold on his shoulders, but it's no use. 

“Because you don't know what you're doing.” 

Suddenly, Stiles is incensed. Anger fills the air, acrid and sour in a stark contrast to how sweet and light Stiles' lips tasted against Derek's, and he very pointedly shoves at Derek's hands. Taking the hint, Derek pulls his hands away from Stiles' skin, giving Stiles free roam to scramble backwards from where he was just nearly straddling Derek's lap. 

“Because I'm an idiot, right?” Stiles hisses, crossing his arms over his chest. “Because I'm just some stupid human who doesn't get -”

“That's not what I meant,” Derek defends, even though it might've been exactly what he meant. Just not the way Stiles is thinking of it. Stiles is thinking of it like Derek thinks that humans are just plain stupid and incapable of the same feelings and emotions as wolves – but Derek is actually thinking about it like Stiles has been raised so sheltered and away from how normal people interact with one another that he just. Doesn't. _Understand_. 

Stiles doesn't understand, and it would be wrong of Derek to take advantage of that. 

“I know what a kiss is. I know when people are supposed to kiss. You kiss when you like someone.” He leans forward like he's going to do it again, and Derek back peddles with his hands, flinging himself against the headboard of the bed with a _bang_. 

Undeterred, Stiles just narrows his eyes and huffs, like he's being denied a piece of chocolate or an extra hour in front of the television. “People kiss all the time without even hardly knowing each other,” he says like he has any fucking idea what he's talking about, like all the movies and shows he's seen are all he needs to know about the real world, and Derek can't believe how _naive_ Stiles can be. “You and I know each other, and you're nice, so -” 

“ _Stiles_ ,” and this time, he nearly yells it. Stiles shrinks back, eyes widening as he drops himself down off of his knees to flop on top of the covers on the opposite side of the bed from Derek. “You don't _kiss_ people just because they don't treat you like garbage like everyone else has. You don't fucking throw yourself at the first person who shows you the least bit of kindness, Stiles!” 

For a second, it's just quiet. Stiles blinking hugely at Derek, Derek pressed back against the headboard with one hand held out to stop Stiles if he tries to fucking kiss him again, and silence in between them. Derek knows he's been too harsh with him, in these quiet moments that follow his words, but he isn't quite sure how to go back. 

Stiles doesn't deserve to be yelled at for not understanding something, Derek knows – but it was just so... _jarring_. Almost scary, to have Stiles really and truly believe something so inane and childishly innocent, but in the body of a full grown adult. 

The scariest part of it all was that Derek _wanted_ it. He wanted to kiss Stiles, and he wanted to press up against him and feel every single inch of his body up against his, and - 

“I just,” Stiles starts, voice sounding tight like he's about to cry. “...wanted to know what it would be like.” 

...but it wouldn't be right. When it comes to any form of sexuality, Stiles just don't understand, not yet. To him, contact is doled out in pets and scratches behind the ear and cruelty. Nothing more, nothing less. He doesn't know what it's like to have someone who loves him, not just thinks he's cute or stupid or helpless, but _cares_ about him, show him any kind of real and true affection. 

All he knows, really, is that he gets touched when someone deems that he deserves it. The thought makes bile rise to Derek's throat, and he can't stand to look at Stiles, right now. He doesn't particularly want to sit there listening to him cry, either, and he doesn't know what he could possibly to say to make anything better, so he just gets up, off the bed. 

Away. 

Clearing his throat, he says, “I'm just going to – I need to get out of here.” 

Stiles sits there on the bed, watching him dress, wide-eyed and silent, tears streaming down his cheeks, and Derek feels as horrible as he did the first day the two of them met, when he snapped Stiles' finger. Both times he hurt Stiles. Just different ways. 

He gets in his car, leaves Stiles all alone and doesn't think much of it since he's done this a dozen times before (to go to the grocery store, to meet with Lydia), and Stiles has always been fine, spiders aside. And then he just drives for a while. Trying to fucking think without having Stiles' scent invading his wolf's brain and making it think about _more, more, more,_ Stiles' soft hands on him, Stiles' weak, smaller body underneath his, how Stiles smells - 

He just can't be thinking about that. It's not right. It's ten different levels of wrong. Stiles doesn't know what he's doing, he doesn't get it. And Derek knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that all Stiles really wants is someone to care about him, tactile and spoken word and all of it. 

There's some things Derek doesn't have any right to take away from Stiles. His freedom and his agency are more than fucking enough, by now. 

He can't very well drive around aimlessly for the rest of his life, loathe as he is to come into contact with anyone or actually have a conversation with someone, but he can't go home to see Stiles. Just not yet. What he needs is a distraction. White noise to help block out the memory of Stiles' lips on his, the look of rejection he gave Derek when the wolf just walked out on him after trying to kiss him. 

There's not many friends that Derek has left. In high school, he had a whole slew of them – people who latched onto his money and his namesake like leeches and tried sucking fame and fortune clean out of him via fake smiles and fake companionship. But once he got out into the real world with a trust fund he didn't even know what to begin to do with, he sort of shut in. He talks to his sisters, to Lydia (who's a friend in the most fairweather sense) and Erica. Erica might actually be the closest thing he has to a legitimate connection with another person. Anyone who can sit there unperturbed by Derek's eyerolling and negative disposition with no ulterior motive is as good as he's ever going to get. 

Erica clacks into the coffee shop in the lobby of his mother's office building (he had called her beforehand and asked her to meet him – the last fucking thing he needs right now is to run into his mother to be harangued and prodded at for an hour) and spots him right away, huddled in the table by the window. Pretending like he can't still feel Stiles' phantom touch on his skin. 

She seemed like the perfect (and only) person to call. Derek thought she'd prattle on about her boyfriend, deliver the office gossip as if Derek gives a shit, and in general take Derek's mind off of things.

The first thing that comes out of her mouth after setting her usual, sweet-smelling coffee drink on the table is, “where's my little buddy?” 

Derek palms his face. So much for that. 

“How come you've left him home both times you've come?” She leaves a lipstick stain on the lid of her cup, sits down in the chair and frowns. “ _Why_ are you keeping him from me?” 

“Don't take it too personally. I'm keeping him from everyone.” Including his own family. That's a pang that hasn't stopped ringing in his ears. 

Erica sighs dramatically and stares wistfully out the window. “So now I'm stuck with you.” 

That just about does it. “You know,” he begins, rising into a standing position, “if you're going to be so fucking -”

“Hey, hey,” she says quickly, holding her hands out to freeze Derek in his place. “Cool down, big guy, I'm _joking_.” 

She motions for Derek to sit back down, and he does so, slowly; but he narrows his eyes in her direction and frowns pointedly. 

“I do genuinely miss Stiles but – you're okay, too.” There's a pause. Derek wringing his hands together underneath the table, Erica staring at him and sipping silently. But there's really only so long Erica can stand to not talk about _something_. “You seem upset.” 

Derek scowls at his hands. “Weird day is all.” 

Another silence, this one filled with only Erica's scrutinizing stare and red lips scrunched up in thought. Derek was stupid to think that Erica wouldn't be able to just perceptively know what's going on, or at least the general gist of it; she has that way about her where she can read a person, even as stone-faced as Derek, like reading a magazine. “Is Stiles okay?” 

_Define okay_ , Derek thinks humorlessly. Somehow, the word seems to be subjective when used with Stiles, depending on who you'd be asking. In Talia's eyes, he's great and he's doing great and being great and this that and the other thing. In Derek's – well. 

“Stiles is progressing a lot faster than I thought he would,” Derek admits, which is true. In just under four weeks, Stiles has gone from crying and shoving himself as far away from Derek in the backseat of his mother's car, to trying to fucking _kiss_ him. Zero to sixty pretty damn fast. “He's good. Smart. Adapts fast.” 

Erica blinks at him. “Then what's the problem?”

She's not clued in to the whole _this is fake_ bit, but like Derek has said, she's perceptive. She might not know that Stiles is a pawn in another one of his mother's perfectly guarded games of chess, but she has the common sense to at least know that it's not exactly as Talia says it is. She might just think that Derek couldn't find someone on his own from being a ridiculous hermit all the time, and now Stiles has been dragged in and forced to marry him just so Derek can look good. Still, Derek has to be careful with his word choice around her. Saying that Stiles tried to kiss him and now Derek is freaking the fuck out about it isn't something that he can admit; not to her, or really to anyone. 

“It's just – sometimes I think that taking him out of the situations he was in before and then just dropping him into normal society, trying to get him to be a normal person...” Erica looks like she's about to angrily interrupt him, so he corrects himself quickly. “Not that I think what Kate says is true – that they're stupid and can't be like us, but. After years of being treated differently and having certain things asked of him -” he pauses. Tries to think of what exactly his point with all this is. “...there's just some thing he can't understand. Ever. Right?” 

“Like what?” 

“Like – healthy relationships. How to – how to _be_ with another person.” All of Stiles' relationships up to this point, even Allison and Scott included, have been about power. Who has it and who doesn't. And Stiles' position in all of those has been the have-nots column. That has to leave a mark on a person, to never have a say in how they're treated or what happens to them or how fast things can go. 

“You just said he was smart,” Erica reminds him with a bit of a bite. “That he can _adapt_.” 

“Being smart doesn't mean you're _immune_ , Erica. After what he's been through, I think that he's – he might be...”

“What? Fucked up? Damaged? Most likely,” she leans back in her seat, takes another sip. “So what?” 

Derek blinks at her; he doesn't see how she's not getting it. “ _So_. Don't you think it's possible that he doesn't know how to properly – like – _be_?” 

Erica sighs through her nose and shakes her head, rolling her eyes to the ceiling for a moment like she just can't bear to even look in Derek's direction right now. Disappointment colors every part of her face, and Derek feels quite possibly ashamed about everything. “He's not an invalid.” 

“I didn't -”

“You did. Are you hearing yourself? What you're saying? You sound just like your mother.” 

Derek is about to start attacking her for that alone – if there's one fucking thing Derek cannot stand, it's being compared to his mother. He's spent so much of his time trying to distance himself from that world, only to wind up thrust right into it, surrounding himself with fucking lies and smoke and mirrors just so his mother can feel pleased with herself. 

But he snaps his jaw shut, and knows that Erica is right. He does sound like his mother. Implying that Stiles can't exist in the werewolf world, that he can't fit into society like everyone else, that he's always going to be different and other. That just because he's not like Derek, he doesn't belong here. He doesn't deserve it. 

It's disgusting. Derek hates himself. For just walking out on Stiles like that, instead of trying to understand him. All Derek had been thinking about was making Stiles understand; he never thought that maybe there was something that _he_ just didn't get, as well. 

“He can understand as well as you or I can,” she says evenly, flipping a blonde curl over her shoulder as she rips the top off her drink to lick at the whipped cream wedged into the lid. “You just have to teach him, first.”

"I don't know how," Derek says pathetically. Because he doesn't. It's a burden saddled onto his shoulders to have to take a person and teach them how to be a person. 

"Not locking him up in the house all the time is a good start," Erica chirps jovially. "I'd like to get my hands on him for a movie night. What kind of movies does he like? I'm demanding time with him, Derek, ASAP, I just know we could be the best of friends if you'd -"

Erica is still talking, but Derek's not listening. Immediately, he knows he has to go back home. He leaps up from the table, ignoring Erica's squawk of _what about lunch?!!? I have things to say!!!_ , and speed walks out the door. How stupid he was – how fucking idiotic and selfish. The last thing Stiles needs is to be left alone to stew, feeling stupid and pathetic like Kate Argent would want him to feel. 

It's too late, either way, though. Derek should've known better. 

When he pulls open his front door, he notices it right away. It's almost impossible not to notice. He's gotten so used to the thickness of Stiles' scent, how strong that human-weak-small- _Stiles_ scent is when compared to anything else in his house, that he knows when it's there and when it just _isn't_. 

Stiles' scent is there, all right. He's spent so much time on that couch, Derek wouldn't be surprised if it could go on to smell like Stiles for months even through non-stop rainstorms outside on the front porch. 

But the difference is that normally Stiles' scent is _there_. Pow. 

This isn't the same thing. This is whispers. Traces of it – a string of it along the television, into the kitchen, drifting off up the stairs and then back down again to come around the hallway towards Derek's bookshelf. 

Fucking remnants. 

It takes Derek under a second to realize that Stiles isn't here. Stiles isn't in the house. There's no heartbeat aside from Derek's, no one breathing except Derek, no noise whatsoever. Derek knows that Stiles isn't fucking there, he's a werewolf, he just _knows_ – but he looks anyway. 

“Stiles?” He calls, desperately. “ _Stiles_?” Up the stairs he goes, tearing through them so fast he blurs, and bursts into his – _their_ – bedroom. 

The bed is made, Stiles nowhere in sight. 

The first thing he does is leap across the room to lift up the pillow, where Stiles has kept the very first book that Derek ever bought for him tucked away safely, like his most cherished possession that he doesn't want anyone else to get to see or look at. 

And it's not there. The book is gone. One glance at the open closet door tells Derek that a jacket is gone, Stiles' favorite shoes, his crusty old backpack that he brought with him from the orphanage. Gone.

Stiles is just _gone_.


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was not initially going to end where I have it right now - I was supposed to get MUCH farther into the story than I have already. I reached the 20k mark for this chap and I was like okay I have to end it lmao I cannot post a 30k chapter I just can't do that.

Panicking is the worst possible thing that Derek could do. Panicking isn't going to help him find Stiles any faster. Panicking is just going to make him wolf out, attack other werewolves on the street while waving Stiles' picture in their face and demanding to know if they've seen him. There's a much easier way to go about this. Lucidity is fucking key, here. 

Derek takes a deep breath, then a second one, hands over his face where he stands in his bedroom. He just needs two fucking seconds to calm down so he can efficiently find Stiles. He's a werewolf for Christ's sake – he knows Stiles' scent like the back of his hand. 

The issue is calming down enough to use his senses properly to the best of his ability. 

He never should have left Stiles alone. Not even once. 

But of all the things that he imagined happening, intruders, accidents, emergencies – never once did he think about Stiles up and leaving of his own volition. Never fucking once did he think that Stiles would be so stupid as to try something like that. Not even back when Stiles was terrified of Derek did he think that the human could be so fucking childish and naive and _reckless_. 

But, clearly, he packed his fucking bag and ran out the door, into werewolf territory, with no one to look after him. 

Derek forces himself not to think about the kinds of things that can happen to a human who wanders off on their own as he takes the stairs two at a time back down. Thinking about that isn't going to help – he focuses on making the decision between car or walk. Car or walk, car or walk, fucking hell, he can't _think_ straight. 

If he takes the car, it might be just a bit harder to track his scent. But if he goes it on foot, then when – not _if_ but _when_ , he convinces himself – he finds Stiles, he'll have to walk him all the way home. Derek doesn't know how far he might've managed to get by now. Derek's been gone for four hours. If Stiles has been gone for just as long, that's a lot of fucking ground to cover. Even for a human. He could be anywhere. 

With anyone. 

But don't think about that. Don't fucking think about that. If Derek starts thinking about that, he won't be able to concentrate and he needs – absolutely fucking has to – concentrate. 

Car, he decides in a brief burst of a clear head. He'll roll all the windows down. 

Stiles' scent goes down the stairs, around the door knob, out the door. That's easy. His scent is already so much a part of this house and the air it keeps that it accepts it, parts for it and lets it rest heavy. 

Once Derek gets outside, it becomes a little bit more difficult. Fighting against the smell of car exhaust, other people, fresh cut grass, dirt, a cat a block or two away. But it's not impossible. There's no other scent with Stiles' just yet, just him alone, which is good. That means he wasn't taken or forced out. He just went by himself. 

It darts left, towards the city instead of deeper into the neighborhoods. Which either means that Stiles is very smart – choosing to head in a direction where he might actually be able to get somewhere – or very, very fucking stupid – choosing to head in a direction where there will be even more werewolves for him to get wrapped up in trouble with. Derek is leaning towards a little bit of both, at the moment. 

In the car, he sticks his head out of the window and follows the scent down his block. Down his street. Past house after house, street sign after street sign, people walking their dogs and kids playing in pools – the scent just keeps going. It amazes Derek on more than one level that Stiles managed to make it this far without getting caught. Seeing and smelling a human is one thing. Seeing and smelling a human by _themselves_ is a completely different fucking ballgame. 

Wolves know what they're supposed to do if they see a human wandering around without a wolf at their side. 

It only makes sense, then, that the scent stops before it makes it out of the gated community that Derek lives in. 

He comes to a screeching halt outside of a huge brick house with terraces and a pool in the backyard – of course Derek lives in a wealthy neighborhood, he's _Derek Hale_ – and takes a big fat inhale.

The scent pools right here, Stiles-scared-anxious-hurt, and Derek is out of his car before he's even got the keys out of the ignition, flying across the front lawn and nearly knocking the door off its hinges with his shoulder. But, while scared and hurt Stiles may be, he's not dying. He can smell enough to know that Stiles is okay, not in immediate and imminent danger, so he takes a deep breath as he forces himself to somewhat casually take the stairs up onto the front porch. 

He knocks. Though, the fact that he cracks the paint on the door from the force of it is just something he can't control. Not when he has the scent of Stiles in pain flooding around inside of his nose. 

A tiny little yapping dog starts barking from somewhere inside the house, followed by a call of _shut up, Skittles, for fuck's sake_. Derek bunches his hands into fists, listening as footsteps get closer and closer to the front door. 

When the door opens, a short alpha werewolf in jean shorts and a pink tank top is standing there in front of Derek, hair pulled up into a messy bun. She's holding a Starbucks drink in one hand and a tiny dog with a diamond studded collar around its neck and little booties on its feet – Skittles, Derek presumes – in the other. She looks like the walking, talking stereotype of a rich sorority girl. 

She scans her eyes up and down Derek quickly, looking confused for a beat or two, her lips a thin line. And then, recognition flickers across her features, and she gives Derek a warm smile. “Oh,” she sips at her green straw, while Skittles whuffs under his breath in Derek's direction. “I think I know what you're here for. You're Derek Hale, right?” 

Right. She seems like exactly the kind of person who would be able to recognize Derek on sight. And, more specifically, exactly the kind of person who would be able to recognize _Stiles_ on sight. She must read tabloids and gossip sites and watch Kira and Isaac's show religiously. She just has that look. 

“Yes,” Derek all but snarls at her, eyeing Skittles with a scowl. 

“Come on inside,” she swings the door open wider, gesturing with her drink for Derek to follow her as she turns her back and starts disappearing into her cavernous house. 

Derek does as directed, inhaling again. The scent of Stiles is so thick here – starting in the entrance, then disappearing down the hallway, past the grand staircase, to an ominous looking door all shrouded in darkness right across from the kitchen. It takes nearly everything Derek has to not go leaping after it then and there. To keep up appearances, he should most likely just wait until this girl takes him to Stiles herself. 

She drops Skittles onto a plush little dog bed, embroidered with his name and right next to hand painted bowls filled with food and water, a huge bone for him to nibble on. She scratches behind his ear for a second, cooing at him, before straightening back up and giving Derek another grin. 

“I found your human,” she says, casual as all get out. “He was looking a little lost.” 

“Yeah,” Derek says, digging his hands into the pockets of his jeans so she won't see his claws starting to come out. “Where is he?”

She purses her lips at him, like he's being _rude_ , and rolls her eyes. “You make a habit out of letting him run around without supervision?” 

He fantasizes for a second about grabbing her by her neck, slamming her head into the drywall as hard as physically possible, tearing one of her arms out of its socket and slipping Skittles one of _her_ bones to fucking chew on. “He can be a little willful,” he mutters. 

This makes her smile again. “Figured that out for myself.”

Derek doesn't like the sound of that. Oh, he doesn't like the sound of that one fucking bit. 

“Seriously, though,” she continues on, motioning with two fingers as she begins leading him down the hallway to the door Stiles is waiting behind. “...you're just lucky that I'm the one that found him. There are some wolves on this street who would drink gasoline for a chance to get their hands on a stray to play with.” 

Down the hallway they go, and Derek really tries to tune out the sound of her voice. He doesn't need to get into a fight with an alpha, right now. He does not need to start a fucking argument or a shouting match or a brawl. All he needs to do is get Stiles, and get out of here. 

But she just keeps. Talking. “Plus, _your_ human?” She huffs a breath, pausing with her hand on the knob. “...people would kill for the opportunity.” Rip the throat clean out of Talia Hale's poster-boy's body. Hundreds of anti-human rights weres would, literally, _kill_ for the shot. 

The door opens, and Stiles' scent hits Derek in the face – scared, hurt, tears, blood – strong enough that Derek has to turn away for a second to catch a breath of fresh air from the rest of the house. It's pitch dark in there, but of course, Derek can see just fine. There's a stair case leading down, which means that it's the basement, and beyond that, cold concrete flooring. Stiles not in sight yet. 

She starts leading him down, sipping away as she does so, without a care in the world, as if the stench of human misery doesn't bother her at all, like she's fucking used to it. “Man,” she says, mostly to herself. “Wait until I tell Jenny about this.” Like it's all so exciting and not in the least bit upsetting that Derek Hale is in her house right now – that Stiles is, as well. 

On the lights go, maybe just for Stiles' benefit. But Derek really wishes he had only seen the sight before him in night vision, the colors duller and more muted, the lines less harsh. Maybe it would've been a lot less jarring to see in low lighting. 

There's a cage, about the same size you might buy for a medium sized dog to fit in comfortably even though it's specifically been made for a human, wedged up against a corner, and Stiles is padlocked inside of it. He's got his knees pulled up to his chest, hiding his face in his arms – this might be the only position he can more or less comfortably fit himself in with the space that he's provided. 

When he looks up at the sound of people approaching and the light turning on, his eyes are red-rimmed with tears, and there's a bruise beginning to purple around the side of his face. He looks, for lack of a better word since there doesn't feel like a word big enough to describe it, absolutely horror-stricken. He's shaking. There's a line of slow drying blood dribbling down from underneath the sleeve of the shirt he's wearing. 

“Oh, my _God_ ,” Derek manages to say. He had come to a halt when he first saw the scene in all its glory, frozen still with shock. He has never in his life seen something like this firsthand. It would be one thing for it to be any ordinary human – disturbing and uncomfortable. But to see _Stiles_ like this, so fucking weak and helpless but treated like he's some kind of threat...

There's fucking _barbed wire_ wrapped around the bars of the cage, for Christ's sake. What did he do to deserve this? Except for be a human without his _master_ , wandering around on the streets for any monster to trap him in their claws. 

He doesn't stop to ask her to open the cage up for him. He walks right over, and tears the padlock off of it without even barely having to try, making Stiles jump, and burrow himself deeper back into the cage like he's _afraid_. 

“ _Hey_!” The alpha-girl screams in indignation, “you're paying for that!” 

Derek squats down as he swings the door open, paying her absolutely no mind whatsoever lest he winds up actually trying to fucking kill an alpha, and peers in at Stiles. 

He's still shaking. Shaking so fucking hard that his breath is coming out unevenly, in harsh pants, his fingers quaking where they're gripping his elbows. His face is hidden back in his arms again, like he doesn't want Derek, or anyone, to look at him. 

Derek sighs through his nose. 

God only knows how many times Stiles has been in this exact same situation before. How many traumatizing, scarring experiences he's had from behind the bars of a fucking cage. This kind of shit – the demoralization, the fear, being left alone in the dark in silence for hours on end without the ability to see like weres can, on the cold floor of a dank basement – it must be like being fourteen years old again, for Stiles. 

Right now, he's probably not in a very great head space. As angry as Derek is, as fucking _furious_ as he feels, he can't let any of it show. 

“Hey,” he says, quietly, “hey, Stiles.” 

Silence. Nothing but the sound of Stiles' breathing and erratic heartbeat. 

Alpha-girl snickers quietly to herself. “He was such a chatterbox when I first put him in there,” most likely _begging_ to be let out, “but _now_ , all of the sudden -”

“You shut your _fucking_ mouth,” Derek snaps at her; even as an alpha, she shrinks back a little, snapping her jaw shut with a click. Guess the Hale name is worth at least that. 

He turns back to Stiles, who's peaking out at him with huge eyes. “Stiles,” he tries again, “why don't you come on out?” 

Stiles doesn't move except to lift his head just the slightest bit, so Derek can see more of his face. The only mark there is that same bruise, and Derek wonders what he said or did to this alpha to make her angry enough to hit him. It was probably nothing, Derek knows. Nothing that warrants an attack on someone who can't rightly defend themselves against it. Then, Stiles shakes his head. No. 

Derek's patience is running thin – he wants Stiles out of this fucking cage, out of this fucking house, and back home. Now. But he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a second, and then lets it out. Calm. _Calm_. “You don't want to come out of the cage? It doesn't look very fun in there.” 

“Oh, just grab him,” she pipes up from the background, huffing in annoyance. 

“Shut. Up.” He doesn't even spare her a glance. “Stiles, come on.” 

Stiles glances at the alpha, then back to Derek. 

That's when Derek starts to get what's going on here. Humans don't really get the inherent sense of superiority when it comes to the alpha/beta/omega hierarchy of wolves, but they at least know how it works. And right now, in his state of mind, probably all Stiles can see is that the alpha locked him in a cage, and now the beta is trying to coax him out of it. 

Listening to the beta instead of the alpha might result in some pretty shitty consequences for him. Or, so he thinks. 

“Would I ever let anything happen to you?” He asks, trying to catch Stiles' eyes. “Would I?” 

Stiles stays silent and still for another several seconds, like he's mulling that thought over. All Derek can do is keep his crouch, as still and unthreatening as possible, waiting. Alpha-girl starts huffing and tapping her foot, but Derek ignores her. So does Stiles. 

After several more seconds, Stiles finally uncurls himself from his defensive position. He scrapes his jeans against the bars on the underside of the cage, as he slowly starts shimmying his way towards the open door, where Derek is holding his hand out for him. 

“Come on,” Derek encourages him forwards, “it's okay. It's me. Everything's fine, now.” 

Stiles takes Derek's hand the second it's in his reach, squeezing it as tightly as his weak little human muscles can manage – and then, as soon as he's completely out, he's collapsing his full weight on top of Derek. 

Derek rubs his hand up and down his back in soothing circles, listening to the human's heartbeat finally slow down and peter out into something even _resembling_ calm, his breath coming out in short little pants. 

After a second, he looks up at the alpha, still standing there drinking her drink and looking fucking put-upon, and growls under his breath at her. Stiles doesn't even flinch. He doesn't move away from Derek, like he just inherently knows that none of this is a threat to him whatsoever. “You make me sick,” he says evenly to her, “you're absolutely disgusting.” 

She scrunches her nose up, like _what the hell??_ , and Derek knows she just doesn't get it. Wolves that genuinely believe it's okay to do that to humans generally don't have a very good moral compass – to her, she was just doing her civic duty. Like Derek said before, all wolves know what they're supposed to with a human if they find one. 

Take them, check them for a current address or phone number, and then keep them until their owners can come in and scoop them up. 

The part with the cage and the blood and the bruises is optional. Most half-decent wolves only ever go so far as to maybe chain them to a wall or something, just to keep them from running off every ten seconds. 

This was fucking horrific in every sense of the word, and Derek just wants to wash his hands of it. Without another word, he grabs Stiles' backpack from its place right next to the cage and rises into a standing position, pulling Stiles up along with him, and walks up the stairs. He ignores the sound of alpha-girl ranting and raving about damages and five hundred dollar lock and _put a leash on him next time_ – keeps his hand on Stiles' elbow firmly and leads him out of the house. 

As he's walking out of the foyer, he spots Skittles sitting there with his bone, chewing happily on his plush bed like the luckiest dog on planet earth.

Skittles the chihuahua gets a soft bed, food and water, and toys. A diamond collar. Clothes, even though he already fucking has fur. 

Stiles the human being got locked up in a cage in the basement for three hours. No matter how Derek tries to rationalize that, he just can't. 

It's silent on the short ride home. Stiles sitting blank faced in the passenger seat, scratching absentmindedly at the drying blood on his arm, Derek gripping the steering wheel and trying to wipe the images he just saw forever out of his fucking mind. 

Once inside, Derek brings Stiles into the bathroom and wets a hand towel with warm water. Squeezes it out, folds it over, scrubs at the bleeding. 

It's not so bad. Just a couple of shallow claw marks – those kinds of wounds bleed a lot, he's read. Silly little nicks, but they bleed a lot. Funny. Interesting. 

The blood cleaned up, Derek drops the towel into the hamper, picks up Stiles' chin with two fingers to twist his face to get a better look at the bruising – not too bad either. She must have been holding back, a lot, to leave a bruise this light. He does another once over, scanning for any other possible hurts or bruises – finding none, he rubs at his eyes, sighs through his nose. 

“Well?” Stiles croaks, voice cracked and ruined. Derek wonders masochistically how much and how _hard_ he begged to be let out for the first hour, at _least_. How anyone, werewolf or not, in their right mind could sit through that and be able to stand it, is absolutely beyond Derek. “Are you going to say anything?” 

Derek crosses his arms over his chest, and gives Stiles an empty look. Truth be told, he doesn't know what to say. A part of him wants to be angry at Stiles for running, like that, for being so stupid when he should _know_ better out here in wolf country. But another part of him knows that it's not his fault. It's really not. 

“Are you going to – to _yell_ at me? Tell me how fucking _stupid_ I was?” 

He meets Stiles' gaze head on, doesn't say a word. 

“ _Say_ something,” Stiles pleads, reaching his hand out to shove at Derek's chest, again and again. “Yell at me, come on, just – just talk to me. I know I shouldn't have – I know I – I shouldn't have gone, I shouldn't have -”

“Why did you?” Derek asks, voice low. 

“Because,” Stiles moans back, tears starting to roll down his cheeks at an alarming rate all over again. “Be _cause_. You don't want me, and I thought – my dad – and -” 

It's not a full thought. Not a single thing that's come out of his mouth has been a full thought, but Derek thinks that he understands all the same. It's the very first time that Stiles has said anything about a single member of his family, and now he knows, at least, who it is that Stiles thinks of whenever he says something about back home. 

He reaches out and thumbs Stiles' tears away from his face, frowning. “Stiles,” he starts slowly, “the sanctuaries are miles, and miles, and miles away.” 

Stiles sniffles. “I know.” 

Derek doesn't think that Stiles does know. Does he have any fucking concept whatsoever of how the world really works? For hundreds and hundreds of miles as far as the eye can see it's nothing but werewolves. That Derek knows, there's only one sanctuary in California, all the way up North. Far, far away, bridging close to fucking Washington state. It's a moot point. It was Stiles' last resort. 

“I just thought I had to go,” he tries to push Derek's hands away to no avail, but Derek takes the hint and drops his hands himself. Stiles wipes at his own eyes, averting them to the ground. “I made you mad.” 

“You didn't.” 

“You acted like I disgust you.” 

“No,” Derek shoots that horse in the face point blank. “ _No_. That's not what – you misunderstood. It wasn't like that. I wouldn't have minded it, Stiles, but that's not the problem.” 

Stiles blinks at him, swiping at a few more tears, but doesn't say anything. 

“You don't disgust me, you could _never_ ,” one hand reaches out to stroke down the side of Stiles' face, the one with the most freckles and moles, fingers tracing the designs of them gently. “I'm sorry I made you think that. I'm sorry I made you feel like you had to run away.” 

Stiles lets out a shuddering breath when Derek's fingers trace down his neck, to his collarbones – less pronounced than they were when Derek first met him, but still there all the same – and puts his own hands on either one of Derek's shoulders. That should have been a warning all on its own, but Derek thought after the first experience, and after what just happened, Stiles wouldn't be doing something like that at this particular moment.

But, Stiles stands up on his tip-toes and tries using the leverage he's got on Derek's shoulders to bring their faces together for another kiss. 

“Jesus Christ, _Stiles_ ,” Derek hisses, angling his body back until he's bumping up against the wall opposite the one Stiles is standing in front of. “Stop.” 

“Why?” Stiles demands, just like the first time – though there's more conviction in it this time around. Less confusion. “ _Why_? Why, why, why-”

Derek runs his hand through his hair, breathes evenly in and out. “You're not thinking about this the right way -”

“Don't,” Stiles snaps at him, pointing a finger in his face, “you dare. Do you have any idea how insulting it is for you to stand there, talking like I'm so – so stupid?” 

“That's not – I don't – Stiles, _please_ , not now, after what just -”

“I care about you,” Stiles says emphatically, talking over Derek and pointing to himself. “I care about you. And when you touch me, I don't feel so bad anymore. And you make me feel better. And I want – I want! Don't you?” 

Derek closes his eyes. He can't have this conversation right now. He just can't. It's too fucking much. One second he's pulling Stiles out of a cage in an alpha's basement after he tried to run away, and the next, Stiles is fucking trying to do the exact same thing that get them into that mess to begin with. Though, it wouldn't be Stiles if it weren't up and down like a rollercoaster, now would it? “Stiles.” 

“Don't you care about me?” He pushes, not giving up for even a second. “I know you do. I know it. That's not why you won't, and you won't explain -”

“I can't take advantage of you like that,” Derek bursts out, pushing Stiles gently by his shoulders to give two feet of space between them. “I won't fucking do that to you, Stiles.” Not like every other wolf already has. 

Stiles is quiet for a moment, frowning and furrowing his brow at Derek like he's so angry he needs a second to just – _glare_. Full force. Anger is not a very good look on Stiles. “I just spent the morning locked in a cage in a basement, Derek,” he says, creepily even, no inflections in his voice whatsoever, and to hear the words so deep like that sends a chill up Derek's spine, “and you think that the _worst_ you could do to me is kiss me?” 

Derek looks away pointedly, to the wall, and tries to get his mind straight. Stiles is making a whole lot of sense right about now, just like Erica was making sense earlier today, and it's too many thoughts and too many things at once and he just can't – think. Not with Stiles so close to him. Not with everything that just happened; Derek's need to _protect_ and curl himself around Stiles like a shield to keep the world out and Derek the only thing that's allowed in is so strong he almost can't think of anything else. 

“I want you to,” Stiles says quietly, stepping closer and moving his eyes up and down Derek's face, so that his lashes flutter. “I _want_ you to. If you don't want to because you don't want to, fine. But – for my benefit?” He makes a face, shakes his head. “You're not doing me any favors. I – please.” 

Derek doesn't move. He could. He could back away, say _Stiles I just can't_ , and that's what he fucking _should_ do. Stiles is young, and naive, and scared, and hurt, and every thing. He's been through too much. The last thing he needs is Derek to come in and add something else onto the pile. 

“I trust you,” Stiles goes on, putting his hand on Derek's shoulder. “That's more than I can say for almost anyone else. There's no one else I'd rather – there's no one.” 

“There's no one,” Derek repeats back to him, just to hear how it sounds. Because, the truth is, that might be Derek's case, too. There just might be no one, no one else, that Derek would ever want to kiss – or, if he did kiss someone else, he might only ever think about Stiles instead. 

Stiles fists his hand into Derek's shirt, sighs so deeply it's like he's releasing his own demons out through his breath, and drops his forehead against Derek's chest. “I knew you would come,” he nearly whispers. “I knew you'd come for me. You wouldn't have left me there.” 

“No,” Derek agrees as he fits his hands onto Stiles' hips. “I never would have.” 

Stiles' breathes again, and it sounds like a laugh. “That's why, Derek. _That's_ why. You'd never leave me.” 

That hits Derek maybe harder than it should, harder than Stiles realizes. Because, he's right. Derek doesn't think that he could ever, ever leave Stiles alone to face anything like that – or, maybe, ever leave him alone period. Not now. Not after everything. 

But that's just the problem. Derek may not be able to leave Stiles. But Stiles could leave Derek. 

He's proven that, already. And in a way it's okay, because Stiles should leave Derek. Stiles shouldn't be here at all, and Derek knows that. 

In another way, a more selfish, nasty way, it's not okay. Not at all. 

Stiles looks up, tilting his neck so he can see Derek's face, his eyes – Stiles' are still rimmed in red, a reminder of all that's happened this morning, and all Derek can think about is this desperate desire to _protect_. To _keep_. To _hold_. It's wrong, he knows it's fucking wrong, but he can't just stop. 

A door has been opened wide, cold air dusting in and waking him up, and he doesn't have the heart to get up and close it, not even if he freezes. 

“I want to be -” Stiles starts, and then pauses, like he's searching for the right words. Derek can see the gears turning in his head. “...close to you. And I know that I don't – know what I'm doing, but I just – _feel_...I feel like I want you to be close. I want to feel safe.” 

When has Stiles ever, ever once in his life, truly felt safe? Not even in the sanctuaries, not even as a little kid, because back then, he must've always been looking over his shoulder, waiting for the chance that some wolf would come and take him away in the night. And in the end, they did. 

So to hear Stiles say that Derek is his way to feel safe...it's enough for Derek to make up his mind. 

He leans down to bridge the distance between them, and locks their lips together. 

Stiles responds in kind; tip-toeing himself up higher for more leverage, wrapping his arms around Derek's neck and pulling his body as tight up against the wolf's as physically possible. It's strange to feel him so close like this, body pressed right up against Derek's, unimpeded – because he's so light. There's no strength, no power, no nothing. Just him. Bones and skin and a heartbeat pumping blood through veins. 

It's soft. Stiles, himself, is soft. 

Once they're parting their lips and deepening the kiss, it becomes more than crystal clear to Derek that Stiles has no fucking idea what he's doing. Not that it necessarily bothers him, but it takes a lot to not huff out a laugh through his nose at just how clueless Stiles really it. It's all teeth-knocking together, Stiles' tongue doing bizarre things inside of Derek's mouth, Stiles making a soft noise of surprise like this isn't at all what he thought it would be. Even so, Derek wouldn't go so far as to call it bad – maybe clumsy. It's hard for anything with Stiles to really and truly be _bad_. 

It's just innocent. 

When Stiles finally breaks the kiss – a little spit dribbling down his chin so fucking stupidly that Derek can't help but smile at him – he doesn't let go. He only tightens his grip around Derek's neck and props his cheek against Derek's chest. 

For a second, they're just holding each other. And then Stiles is crying again. 

Derek would be alarmed, worried that it was something he had done, that he made a mistake for the hundredth time since meeting Stiles – but he knows what this is. It's not about Derek, at all. Stiles cries, and cries, dampening Derek's shirt with his panting breaths and tears, because there's nothing else, nothing at all that he can do. He can't go home, and he can't run away, and any and all attempts to do just that would be futile. The only thing he has in the world anymore, really, is Derek. And he clings onto him like he's scared that even that might get taken away from him. 

They stay that way for a while. 

When it's over, Stiles pulls Derek into their bedroom and drags Derek down onto the bed with him – and Stiles doesn't stick to his side, this time. He plops directly into the center and presses his back against Derek's chest, taking Derek's hand in his and draping it over his hips. The sun is only just now high in the sky, spilling in across Stiles' features and the carpeting, but Derek can't imagine what else they would do, now, except for get into bed. 

It's not exactly like Derek can charge that alpha with anything. She didn't do anything wrong. Just harboring a human until their owner could come and pick them up, not a problem whatsoever. And Derek doesn't want to leave, doesn't want to take Stiles out, doesn't want anything else except to just be still for a while and decompress. 

It's silent, save for the occasional sniffle from Stiles. Derek honestly believes that Stiles is going to try and go to sleep, now, which would probably be best for him – so it's a bit of a surprise when Stiles starts talking. 

“My mom,” he starts, and Derek blinks his eyes open against the back of Stiles' head, “she was one of those factory babies. You know?” 

The humans that they used to churn out in droves in laboratories after there was a scare that they were all going to die out – and then where would wolves get all their fun from? Derek doesn't have the slightest clue how they managed it, but those humans were fucked with at some point in their conception or development to be smaller and weaker. Which explains why Stiles looks how he looks and is how he is. 

“And there was something wrong with her. I don't know. None of the people in my village who came out of that place – they didn't -” ...live long. They all died young. Derek remembers that. Most of them all in the course of the same two years. It was pretty big news for a while when Derek was a teenager; yet another population scare from humanity, and the Argents leaping on top of it like a dog with a bone, reminding the world again that this is why they do what they do, why the wolves need to have complete control over humans. They're dying out. They need the wolves. “Then it was just me and my dad, but somehow – they found out.” 

Derek nuzzles his nose into Stiles' neck and sighs. “Who?” 

“Argents. I think. Every now and then, maybe once or twice a week, there'd be this big truck of wolves that would come through, and they normally didn't take people – but once they found out about my mom, they came in and said...” he huffs, tightening his grip on Derek's hand, “that it wasn't right for me to be without a mother, alone with my dad who could barely feed me, so they took me. I was twelve.” 

Because he can't think of a single thing to say, Derek presses his lips against Stiles' throat and runs the fingers of the hand that isn't in Stiles' tightest grip up and down the human's side.

“I spent a day or two in the back of a van, and then I was being dropped off at the factory and being handed a uniform.” 

So – here's the thought process behind how the Argents like things to run. They claim that humans are so weak and useless, accuse their parents of not being able to feed them, take them away for the _greater good_ , and then they fucking dump children in factories to fucking make shoes for werewolves for no money. 

“I only spent a couple of months there. I got bought under the table,” young, too young, for a public buy-out, “and...yeah.” 

Derek breathes for a moment, taking in Stiles' scent. “How did you even get away from her? Your owner.” 

“It's kind of funny,” he pauses for a second, “or I think it is. You probably won't.” 

“What?” Derek prods; he knows he really probably won't find it funny at all, but he has to know. 

Stiles laughs quietly to himself, shaking his head against the pillow. “I tried to poison her.” 

Derek goes stock still. Mostly out of fucking shock. The kind of balls any human must have to try and deliberately hurt or even kill a wolf must be – insane. And to think of Stiles doing that at around age fifteen is so fucking insane of an idea to Derek, that his mind very nearly rejects it. 

“Failed attempt, but she was, like, pissed,” yeah, Derek can imagine, Jesus Christ, “and I guess I'm pretty lucky that she didn't kill me. She just sent me away.” 

“To that orphanage,” Derek clarifies – and his voice must hold some amount of contempt for Mother Mary and her shit-show, because Stiles makes a small noise of dissent. 

“It wasn't so bad, there.” 

“You said the same thing about your owner.” 

Stiles is quiet for a moment, and Derek wonders what he's thinking about. Maybe the gruel Mary would feed him and force him to heat up to feed the rest of the children, or the cartoons blaring at him at all hours of the day, the rocks and sticks for toys, the one pair of pants he owned. “Touche'. Anyway, that's – that's it. The whole story.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Derek murmurs into his neck, squeezing gently at Stiles' fingers in a show of gratitude. “You didn't have to.” 

“I want you to know all that stuff. It's, you know. Part of me. And I want you to know.” 

A longer pause, now, and again, Derek expects sleep. But Stiles pipes up again. 

“I think about my dad all the time.” Stiles laughs, and this time, it's a bitter, cold sounding thing. “I don't even know if he's still alive. There's every chance he's not.” 

“You were going to find him,” Derek reminds him quietly in a tight voice, “you must believe that he is.” 

“I was just being stupid. I'd never be able to find him. I don't – remember. Where home even was. I don't remember.” 

Right. Because Stiles was taken away in a van with blacked out windows so that, even if he ran, and even if he somehow managed to evade capture for long enough, he'd never be able to find his way back to that place. Derek doesn't think that, before that, he had ever left the sanctuary. Not once. What a shocker it must've been to come out into the wolf world and see all the things they have, the way that they live. 

Abruptly, Stiles is trying to twist out of Derek's grip. He could never do so on his own, so Derek has to physically release him to let him slide across the bed to drop half his body over the edge of it. Derek blinks blearily at him in confusion, about to ask what he's doing over there, when Stiles comes back up with that mysterious black box he took out of his backpack the day he first came here. Derek actually hasn't seen that thing since then – he kind of forgot about it. 

Stiles sits criss-cross on the bed, so Derek sits up as well, leaning back against the headboard and watching Stiles pull the top off with a screech of metal against metal. 

Derek can't help peering over to get a look at what's in there – and it isn't much. It looks like a bunch of useless junk to Derek, honestly. There's an old metal bottle cap, some quarters, a scrap of plaid fabric, and a photo. 

Out of the box the photograph comes, held reverently in Stiles' fingers, like he's terrified of it getting damaged in any way shape or form, and he shows it to Derek. But doesn't offer it for him to hold. Most likely because he suspects that Derek would crush it in his wolf hands. Which is fair. 

“My dad,” Stiles explains, pointing his finger at the picture. 

Derek scrutinizes it. It's almost eerie to see a picture of Stiles as a kid, like this, but there he fucking is – all smiles, with a man standing next to him that has his arm slung around his shoulders. His father. The resemblances are slim to none, and he's big when compared to Stiles – so Stiles must have inherited most things from his mother, then. 

There's not much else in the photograph to see. All Derek can see in the background is a tree and some grass. Not very telling of what the sanctuary is really like. Derek is almost surprised that they had cameras and somewhere to print pictures, in there, which just goes to show exactly how much he really knows about it all. 

“I used to have dreams, back with my owner,” he takes the picture away, holds it close to his own face and stares at it, in a particular way that suggests that he's done this a million times – just stared, in the hopes that maybe he could jump inside of it and get back there, to that exact moment in time, be _that_ kid again. “...where my dad would come in and save me and I could go home. Then I'd wake up, and be in the cage, and -” he stops, clears his throat. Drops the picture back into his little box and snaps the lid closed on top of it. “...stupid. Dad couldn't have found me if he tried.” 

Something flickers inside of Derek's head, hearing Stiles say all of this, and seeing that picture. The start of something, the very beginning of an idea or a decision being formed inside of his mind. He's not even consciously aware of it yet, but he feels it all the same, itching at the back of his mind. 

Stiles reaches forward and presses his fingers into Derek's chest, as if marveling at the fact that he can just do that, now, and looks Derek straight in the eyes. “You found me, though.” 

That's not enough. That just isn't enough.

\----

“I don't know – he just seemed really upset,” she's smacking bubblegum between her teeth and wearing sunglasses, standing in her front yard with her arms crossed over her chest, smirking at Kira Yukimura beside her like she's been waiting for this exact moment for her entire life. Fifteen minutes of fame, camera in her face, everyone wanting to hear what she has to say.

“Upset how?” Kira prods, turning to give the camera a wide-eyed look. 

“Well,” she runs her fingers through her hair, tilts her head to the side as if she's trying to give the camera her best possible angle. It doesn't matter to Derek either way. Any way he looks at her, all he can think about is Stiles being locked in her basement, scared and alone in the dark, while she sat upstairs fucking filing her nails and ignoring his cries for help. “...I don't know. Just, like – upset.” 

“Was he hurt?”

“Um – not that I could tell.” Not until she got her claws into him, at least. “He was just upset.” How many fucking times in one five minute period of time can the word _upset_ be used? 

Since Kira is a mastermind of maneuvering people into saying what she wants them to in order to get the best possible results, even when she's talking to an absolute fucking idiot, she takes it all in stride. “Upset. Hm. Did he say why he was running away?” 

“Well -” another smack of her gum, a sly look, “he was like, freaking out, first of all, and then when I asked him if he was Derek Hale's he started freaking out even more -”

“Really?” Kira leans in to her, her mouth dropping open into a surprised o. “Once he heard Derek's name he was even more frightened?” 

“Oh, _yeah_ ,” she emphasizes with a head nod, “totally freaked out. He kept trying to hit me, after that.” 

Unbelievably, Kira laughs. But of course, this is hilarious to her and all other wolves, the idea of a human trying to get the upperhand on a werewolf. Absolutely fucking ridiculous and laughable, at best. 

“Then when Derek actually showed up, Stiles literally refused to get out of the cage until Derek practically, like, forced him.” 

“He was scared of Derek?” 

“Oh, yeah. He was terrified.” 

The frame freezes after Talia practically breaks her finger jabbing it down on her keyboard, and then there's nothing but silence in her office. Talia staring Derek down, Derek rubbing at his jaw again and again, Stiles hunching in his seat like he's afraid he's about to get the verbal lashing of a lifetime. He really, probably is. Both of them are. 

Derek should've absolutely known that the alpha-girl was going to be calling the fucking press the second that Derek left that house. Maybe if he had actually given her the time of day instead of treating her like the devil (which, not his fault, because she sort of is) all of this could've been avoided. But the thought of putting on a nice face for a person like that makes Derek want to be fucking sick. 

“I cannot even begin,” Talia says, and then leaves it hanging out there in the air. Her mouth stays open like she has more to say, but she just sits there, eyes up in the corner of the ceiling, like she's honestly and truly searching for where to even start with all this. Seconds pass. Stiles shifts in his seat and starts playing with the bottom of his shirt. “...the position you have put me in – the extent to which you have screwed me over -”

“It's not that bad -”

“Not that bad,” Talia cuts him off with a nod of her head, finally looking down to meet Derek's eyes. “You're right. It's not _that bad_. It's not. It's horrifying, Derek.” 

“She has no proof whatsoever that any of that really happened -” 

“Except for the dozen or so pictures of Stiles fucking wandering around by himself that people took on their phones!”

“Well, she can't prove that Stiles was afraid of me,” he defends. “And, by the way, he wasn't!” 

For the first time since coming home from the orphanage, Stiles speaks up of his own volition in Talia's office – though it's quiet, nervous. “I wasn't,” he agrees without looking at Talia, though she swivels her head in his direction and narrows her eyes like she's looking at an annoying little puppy that's barking in the middle of her conversation. “I'm – I'm not.” 

“The reason he was so scared is because some fucking _psychopath_ stole him off the street and tormented him for hours on end!” 

Talia slaps her hands onto her face and takes three deep breaths – in and out, in and out, in and out. Composing herself to the best of her ability. But Derek can tell that her fingers are shaking with anger, the need for her claws to come out, that she's barely holding it together as it is. When she takes her hands away, her face is eerily drawn and shut in tight; perhaps the calm before the storm. “Be that as it may,” she says darkly, “that's not even half the issue. The issue here is that he went anywhere at all. Why was he out by himself? _Where_ was he going?” 

When she's met with nothing but silence from both of the boys, neither of them looking directly at her, her mouth curves into a deadly scowl. 

“Tell me he wasn't actually _running away_.”

Derek opens his mouth like he's going to say something, holds his hands out in the preamble to an explanation, but then nothing comes out. It doesn't matter either way; the truth is out there, exposed by both he and Stiles' refusal to say a single word. 

“You are fucking kidding me,” she leans back in her seat and shakes her head at the both of them, eyes wide and disbelieving. “You must be kidding me. What the – what _happened_?” She eyes Derek with near disgust. “What did you _do_?” 

“It wasn't like that,” Derek defends with as much conviction as possible. “He was – we were -”

“It wasn't about Derek,” Stiles adds on, though when Talia turns to look at him he shrinks back into his seat and snaps his mouth shut. 

“We had an argument,” he says this slowly, as slow as possible so that the lie won't be as easily detected. He can't very well come out and tell his mother that Stiles tried to kiss him and Derek freaked the fuck out about it and ran away like a scared little kid – he doesn't know what her reaction to that would be, but he's betting it wouldn't be great. “And I left to clear my head, and when I got back...”

Talia stares Stiles down. It's as if, for the moment, Derek isn't even in the room – it's just her, and her angry eyes boring into Stiles as if they could melt the flesh clean off his bones. Unnerved, and rightly so, by an alpha glaring at him like that, he starts to fidget and casts his eyes down onto the ground – shame colors his cheeks. Like he really has anything to be ashamed about. 

“I – I just wanted to -” he blinks furiously, and Derek smells salt in the air, “...I wanted to go home.” 

At this, in spite of the fact that Stiles is about to start bawling his eyes out, Talia tilts her head back and rolls her eyes. “You _little idiot_ -”

“ _Mom_.” 

“Do you have any idea how many strings I had to pull for you,” Stiles starts shaking, visibly, his face turned away as tears start running down his face, “all the things that I have done to make you as comfortable as possible and you go and you do this – you fucking _ungrateful_ -”

“That's enough,” Derek snaps, so loud that Derek thinks he hears the glass in the window panes behind his mother rattling. Derek has never, ever spoken to his mother like that before; no matter how many arguments they've had, no matter how many times she's fucked him over or he's done something to her, he's never talked to her like that. She's his mother, and even when she's being a royal fucking bitch, she at least deserves some iota of respect from her own son. 

But, not today. Not with the way she was just talking to Stiles. 

Talia blinks in surprise, her body draining of its earlier tension, but Derek doesn't pay her any mind. He stands up, takes Stiles by the elbow and begins to lead him towards the door. Against Derek's fingers, Stiles relaxes, somewhat, especially with the prospect of not having to be in the same room with Talia anymore, but he's still crying. 

The most Derek can do with his mother watching is stroke his fingers up and down Stiles' back to console him, before handing him another fifty dollar bill and quietly telling him to go eat something with Erica. 

He wipes his eyes lengthwise with his forearm and squeezes Derek's fingers as he takes the money, sniffling and walking out the door without looking back. 

Then, it's just Derek and his mother, and silence. Derek listens to Stiles as he shuffles down the hallway, his heart beating fast, and keeps right on listening until he hears Erica's chirp of _HEY BUDDY!!_ followed by an intake of breath and _what happened!?_

As soon as Derek is sure Stiles is safe, he rounds on Talia and literally starts fucking coming at her – stomping his feet and shaking his head in disgust at her.

“You need to understand,” she starts, putting her hands up in a placating gesture like she actually thinks she's going to be able to calm Derek down, this time. 

Derek doesn't calm down. He walks right up to her desk, slams his hand palm down on top of the wood hard enough that everything rattles and the wood cracks. “ _You_ need to fucking understand,” he hisses, “that talking to him like that _isn't okay_.” 

“If he's going to be so reckless and stupid, then he needs to be disciplined, Derek.” 

“ _Disciplined_?” Derek repeats this like he can't believe it's an actual word and Talia just used in reference to Stiles. “He got his _discipline_ sitting in a barbed wire cage in a basement.” 

Talia sets her jaw and looks pointedly away to collect herself. Not even Talia can stand to hear of humans being treated like that – mean as she might be in the end, heartless as she may seem, she has the bare minimum amount of respect towards any living creature to find _that_ disturbing. “He is going to jeopardize this entire operation if he can't behave himself.” 

“What you should care most about is his safety!”

“What _you_ should care most about is the safety of every single other human living under the control of wolves -”

“Oh, my God!” Derek throws his hands up in the air and walks away from the desk towards the windows, running his fingers through his hair. “It's like we're not even in the same fucking conversation! _Stiles_ is the one that you actually have the power to help! _Stiles_ is the one who needs it! But you just – you treat him like -” dirt. Absolute fucking dirt. Soil she's going to stamp down and mold to her liking before dropping in the seeds of whatever fucking _change_ she thinks Stiles' compliance in all this is going to bring about. 

“I treat him like the means to an end.” She says this, so fucking detached, and leans back in her seat with a raise of her eyebrows. “You're right.”

Just like every other argument he's ever had with his mother about this exact same thing, Derek has reached the point where he no longer knows what to say to her. Maybe he doesn't know what to say to her even in general anymore, how he's supposed to look at her and know how vindictive, cruel, and coldhearted she can really be if given the opportunity. It blows Derek's mind that she can sit there and be so distant from Stiles, like he's nothing to her whatsoever except some little game she's playing at. 

She's never going to see it any other way. 

“He's so _innocent_ in all of this, he doesn't mean to-”

“He's stupid,” she says matter-of-factly. “And that's not a surprise. Stupid I can work with, it's you being resistant to everything that's the fucking problem, Derek.” 

“I'm not going to treat him like some pet that needs training.” 

Talia fixes him with a steady look, and just stares. Appraising him up and down like she's trying to figure him out, decipher his motives, get to the bottom of every thing that's happening right now. It's another second or two before she says, “what's really going on with you and him?” 

Derek blinks, taken aback by the question – so calm and collected in the middle of this blowout of an argument. “He's – what do you mean?” 

“You smell like him.” 

That gives Derek some serious pause. 

Of course he smells like Stiles. They've been living with each other and sleeping in the same bad for the past month, now; Stiles' scent has seeped into every thing in the house. All of Derek's clothes, Derek's car, the furniture, all of it. 

What Talia means when she says that Derek _smells like Stiles_ is something beyond just close proximity. Which makes sense, considering that Derek and Stiles spent the night cuddling with each other, that they've kissed about six times since the first time because it's apparently all Stiles really ever wants to do anymore. Not that Derek minds it much at all. 

He didn't expect Talia to notice that. But apparently, she has. 

Derek clears his throat, and looks away. “There's nothing going on.” 

Perceptive as they come, Talia instantaneously knows. The lie was easy to pick up on, the fact that Derek won't make eye contact, the fact that Derek reeks of Stiles so strong it's like he's still sitting there in the room with them. She just knows. “Oh, Derek.” 

“It's not like that,” he's immediately saying, stepping forward, “it's not. He's – we're – it's just -” but Derek doesn't know what it's like. He doesn't know what Stiles is like, what Derek is like when he's with Stiles, what they're _doing_. He doesn't know. 

“I knew it,” she shakes her head almost sadly, a smile finding its way onto her face that feels bizarre given the topic of discussion. “I knew this would happen.”

Something in the way that she says it has an uncomfortable feeling pooling up in Derek's chest. She doesn't say it like she's upset about it, or angry, or anything.

She says it almost like Derek's playing right into her hands. That this is exactly what she wanted to happen. Checkmate. _Again_. 

In the hallway, Derek walks far enough down the aisle of office doors and potted plants that he's sure his mother won't be able to hear him unless she were really trying to listen – seeing as how she hasn't listened to a single word he's said in the past ten years of his life, he'd say he's pretty safe on that one. 

He leans back against the wall between a window overlooking the parking lot and a ficus, looks both ways down the hall to make sure that no one's coming, and pulls out his phone. He always thought that the only reason he'd ever have to call Scott McCall himself instead of just handing the phone off to Stiles so they could have their little conversations, is if Scott did something to piss him off and he wanted to chew the idiot out. It's not out of the realm of possibility.

But, this time, that's just not the case.

“Stiles?” Scott says as soon as he answers, sounding excited. 

“Er – no. It's Derek.” 

“Oh.” He doesn't even attempt to mask his disappointment and annoyance. “Is Stiles there?” 

Derek sighs through his nose and glances down the hall again, feeling exposed. Maybe he should've dived into a bathroom stall somewhere. “I called to ask you a question. Kind of important.” 

There's a pause. “Okay...” 

“Before I say anything, I need to know you're not going to tell anyone about this.” 

Another pause. “Who would I tell?”

Derek chews on his thumbnail. “The police, maybe.” 

“ _What_?” He sounds much more invested in the conversation, now. “The police? What's going on? Is Stiles okay?” 

“Stiles is fine,” Derek says – and he immediately assumes that Scott has not yet seen the interview on Kira and Isaac's show with the alpha-girl, talking about Stiles running away and being afraid of Derek. Scott is going to have a field day with that when he does find out, but for now, he doesn't need to know. “It's just that – I need your help.” 

“My help? _Me_?” 

“Well...” he trails off, scratching at the back of his head. “Specifically, Allison's help, but -”

“What are you talking about? Stop dancing around the subject, and come out with it!” 

Derek hasn't had a lot of time to mull this over. He figures that if he spends any excess amount of time just thinking about it, he'll somehow come up with a way to talk himself down and cancel all the plans he's already made up inside of his own head. 

One thing that Derek has known about himself for most of his life is that he can be selfish. Right now, he just can't afford to be so self-centered. 

“Can you...” he starts, and then rubs a hand down the side of his face, in disbelief that he's really about to fucking say this out loud, that he's really about to do this. “...ask Allison if she can get into the Argent records?” 

Scott inhales sharply on the other end of the phone. “Just what the fuck are you after?” 

The Argents have very long thought of themselves as having a pretty strong grip over what goes on with the humans, most specifically in the human sanctuaries. While the Hales have long distanced themselves from being around humans or getting involved in all the dirty business of literal and actual kidnapping of human children, the Argents thrust themselves into it headfirst.

There's no fucking secret that werewolves steal humans out of the sanctuaries. It's how Stiles got taken, and it's how hundreds of thousands of other humans since the start of this system have also been taken. It wouldn't surprise Derek, not in the least, if the Argents have been orchestrating all of this since the start. 

The point is, Derek and everyone else knows that the Argents quite possibly have even more classified information on all of the humans in most of the sanctuaries than the federal government does. If they're the ones that scoop humans out of their homes, then they have to have some way of knowing which ones to come in and grab. So, they do. It's funny how often the government of wolves tells everyone that the sanctuaries are their own entity, that wolves have no power there, that the humans are safe there. It's what his mother is always talking about.

And yet, Argent eyes are everywhere. Collecting information and watching everyone like hawks, deciding who's good enough to be taken away and who's not. 

“I need to know if Stiles' father is alive or not.” 

There's a pregnant silence; loud in Derek's ears with all the implications of what Scott isn't saying. There are a dozen ways he could respond to that – he could call Derek insane for even trying it, get angry at Derek for trying to drag Allison down with him, that this is dangerous and if Kate or Gerard ever found out about it they'd have all three of them arrested no questions asked, even Allison. 

Then, Scott says, “he is alive.” 

Derek nearly drops his phone. “What? How do you -”

“You think we haven't already checked?” Scott sounds dubious, like he's suspicious of why Derek would even want to know about that in the first place. “All we used to think about was trying to get him back home. Are you...are you?”

\----

“Here, Stiles,” Lydia holds a giant chocolate chip cookie out for him. “I got you this.”

A month and a half ago, Stiles would've eyeballed that cookie like it had tentacles spewing out of it, waiting to wrap around his neck and choke him out. Now, he takes the cookie and immediately bites into it, shedding crumbs all over the plush couch Lydia's sat him down on. If there's one thing Stiles has definitely gotten used to since getting out of the orphanage, it's being given food.

Lydia watches as a stray chip calls onto the white fabric, purses her lips, but doesn't say anything. Just sighs once, before fixing her eyes onto Derek now that the human is happily occupied. “Obviously we're in a pickle of a situation.” 

“Are you going to yell at us, too?” Derek asks, as Stiles breaks off a piece of his cookie and holds it out for Derek. “I think we got all the lecturing we need out of Talia.” 

Lydia observes Derek taking the offered piece of cookie, and smirks. “It's not like he's ever going to go anywhere ever again. You live and you learn. Right, Stiles?” 

Stiles mutters something around a mouthful that neither of the wolves understand, so the conversation continues without him. 

“Case in point, him running away again isn't going to be the problem,” she begins to tap her foot on the tiled floors of her office, cocking her head to the side. “The problem is now I have a mess to clean up."

Stiles swallows. “Sorry,” he says without making eye contact, picking along the edges of what's left of his snack. 

“It's not your fault,” Lydia shrugs, “if I were stuck living in a house with Derek, I'd run away, too.” 

“Are we going to get to the point anytime soon?” Derek glowers, nudging Stiles in the arm when he starts to laugh at his expense. “What are you going to make us do?” 

She fixes him with a steady glare, before clacking across the floor to the couch and carefully perching herself on the edge right next to Stiles. She leans down just slightly and sniffs at him as discretely as possible, and Stiles doesn't notice because he's too busy gorging himself on cookie, but Derek, of course, does. When Lydia looks away from Stiles to meet Derek's eyes, she has a quizzical look on her face – but not necessarily with any surprise. “Well – seeing as how everyone thinks you beat your human to within an inch of his life -”

“I wouldn't go _that_ far -”

“Oho,” she wags her finger in his face, “I would. You avoid what people say about you like the plague, but it's my _job_ to know these things. No matter which extreme people are going with, they think he's afraid of you. Bottom line. That's a problem.” 

Again, Stiles hunches forwards slightly. “Sorry.” 

“That's _my_ problem,” she corrects for his benefit. “But if we play our cards right, it can be rectified pretty smoothly.” 

Derek rolls his eyes to the sky and asks _why_. Just – _why_. Out of all the situations he's ever been in because of what his mother does and his lifestyle, this has got to be the downright worst. The last thing he really wants to do is drag Stiles around for the PR fucking circus, get cameras flashed in his face and microphones pushed up to his mouth. 

What he really wants to do is shield Stiles away from the werewolf world, altogether. Get him out. 

“You know how people say...the news winds up in the trash the next day, anyway?” She starts running her fingernails up and down Stiles' back, almost absentmindedly it seems, and Stiles doesn't appear to mind it much. He finishes up the last of his cookie, wipes his hands on his pants, and leans back into Lydia's hand. “If you give them something else to talk about, then they'll have forgotten the other shit within a day or so.” 

“If it's shocking enough,” Derek says carefully, narrowing her eyes. 

Lydia smiles at him with all her teeth. “Exactly.” 

“Lydia, I'm not going to pull some crazy stunt just so my mother can sleep better -”

“It's not a crazy stunt,” she insists, finally taking her hand off of Stiles' back to start swiping at the mess his cookie made all over the couch. “It's elegant, Derek. Simple. The fact that you haven't gone out with him a single time is all the shock value we need.”

Stiles looks at her with a frown on his face, and then looks to Derek – like _get me out of this_. Unfortunately, Derek really can't. It probably is somewhat important that he finally do this, if just to get people to believe that Derek's not beating the shit out of Stiles when he's supposed to a human rights activist. 

As it turns out, Lydia's idea of _simple_ and _elegant_ is what Derek refers to as _hellish_ and _absolutely fucking horrifying_. She forces Stiles into the nicest clothes that Derek has bought for him (dark jeans and a button down with sleeves he fiddles with), calls the paparazzi, and spends twenty minutes lecturing him about proper manners ( _how would you get the salt if it were far away Stiles_ – cue Stiles stretching his upper half across the table to try and paw at the salt shaker in the center, while in the background Lydia starts screaming at Derek about _how have you let him live like this_?) 

True, Derek has spent about zero percent of his time with Stiles actively trying to teach him proper social and societal norms. But, frankly, he doesn't see the fucking point. Stiles has never, never once, been expected to act _normal_ , because in the eyes of the weres, he simply isn't. They all expect him to eat steak with his hands and chew with his mouth wide open. To them, all he is is an animal. They're going think he is either way, so why even bother with the facade? 

Though, maybe she has a point. It wouldn't be good for anyone if Stiles launched a spoonful of mashed potatoes at Derek's face from across the table like he did last night. And it also wouldn't be good for Derek to retaliate by shoving Stiles' face down into his plate, making him laugh so hard he accidentally snorts a pea – which also happened last night. 

The only unshitty thing about this night is that Erica and Boyd will be tagging along for a double date. Hopefully they'll be able to balance it out, or counteract against the fact that Derek and Stiles will be out in public for the first time since Stiles' birthday. Erica is pretty good at putting a positive spin on most situations. 

Although, she's not there when Derek and Stiles pull up outside the restaurant. The absolute second that the car is stopped and the license plate is recognized, cameras start flashing across their faces. Stiles squints against it and frowns, holding his hand up in front of his face, while Derek climbs out of the car to give the keys to the valet waiting for him. 

Derek rounds the car, opens up Stiles' door for him, and immediately wants to slam it shut and go back home, forget about the entire thing, go back to being hermits.

Stiles is pale-faced, his expression completely drawn. On the drive over, he was fine – teasing Derek about how he drives like an _old man_ (a habit he's picked up since he started having fragile human Stiles as a passenger), but now, he looks miserable. He takes Derek's hand to climb out of the car, and from that moment forward, as lights flash and people shout his name, Stiles is plastered against Derek's side like a barnacle, not letting go for anything. 

Lydia will probably love these pictures when they get sold off for thousands and surface on the internet, not to mention Talia. Stiles looks like he's terrified of pretty much everyone _except_ for Derek, which is exactly what Lydia and Talia were gunning for anyway. 

But what's the fucking cost, here? Forcing Stiles to literally be dropped into a den of wolves, terrifying him to the point where all he can do is cling to Derek and keep his head down, while hoping none of the other wolves reach out to claw him. 

In hindsight, Derek will think of this moment, with Stiles wide-eyed and petrified, surrounded by people who would most likely enjoy nothing more than to snatch him up and take him home to be their little toy, all under his mother's orders, as the moment that his mind was made up. He just didn't realize it at the time. 

Inside, Stiles looks absolutely and positively bizarre. The only times that Derek has ever seen a human in a restaurant as upscale as this was either quick glimpses of them working in the kitchen, or when rich wolves brought them along to stand in the foyer holding onto a pile of coats with their frail arms, peering longingly into the restaurant at all the hot, real food they weren't allowed to eat. 

So, Stiles, in his silly little button down (size extra small) looks out of place in every sense of the word. People pause as he walks past them, looking at one another with their eyebrows raised as if daring each other to say something and get Stiles out of here. Derek hears more than one person say something along the lines of _is he really going to let that human eat in here with us_? Like it's so fucking horrifying to see a human eating wolf food, _normal_ fucking food, instead of spooning up disgusting gruel out of a can. Stiles might be blissfully unaware of what they're saying, but he can still see the looks that people are giving him just fine; so he keeps his head down and his jaw set tight. 

Erica is on her feet and bounding up from their table the second she sees them coming, holding her arms outstretched and beaming. 

“Hey!” She wraps Stiles into a hug and starts planting purple kisses all over his cheeks – which Stiles bears with only a slight grimace that turns into a smile he tries repressing after a second. “This is going to be so _fun_! Come on and meet my boyfriend!” 

Boyd stands from the table and holds his hand out for Stiles to shake – and, really, Stiles has never looked more eclipsed by a werewolf than he does standing in front of Boyd. He fits his human hand into Boyd's huge one, and Boyd barely even touches him. He just wraps his thumb around Stiles' palm carefully, like he's afraid he's going to hurt him. Derek knows that's probably a wise decision. 

Stiles sits down, gazes at every thing like he's being asked to translate the Rosetta Stone; which is the exact moment that Derek idiotically realizes that Stiles has never even been to a _restaurant_ before. At least, not like this one. It's just one of those things that's so common to Derek that the thought of someone not knowing how it all works literally blows his mind. Yet, there Stiles is, blinking quizzically at his elaborately folded napkin, furrowing his brow at the bread basket like – bread? In a _basket_? On top of a cloth _napkin_? _Warm_? _Sorcery_. 

When Stiles picks up his butter knife, he pokes at the edge of it, amazed that it's a knife and yet not sharp, and then starts sawing at the pristine white table cloth with it. What possesses him to do that, Derek will never know. Erica slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, Boyd blinks like he's never seen something so strange in his life, and Derek snatches the knife out of Stiles' hands. Apparently, he dropped the ball on this one. But how was he supposed to know Stiles wouldn't know what a butter knife is? They're in the same drawer as the forks at home. He guesses Stiles hasn't done nearly as much exploring around the house as he previously thought. 

“Okay, no more of that,” Stiles frowns at him, but doesn't try to take the knife back. He watches as Derek opens up the menu in front of him and starts pointing at things for him to look at. “You can order anything you want off of this to eat. Why don't you start looking?” 

He gets occupied with that, and turns back to Erica and Boyd with an apologetic smile. “It's all still new for him.” 

“Yeah,” Boyd agrees, watching Stiles observe each and every last menu item like he's reading a novel, “I can see that.” 

A few seconds pass, everyone looking at their own menus, and then Stiles pipes up again. “What's lobster taste like? Like, what is that?”

“First of all, you wouldn't like that,” Derek would bet big money on this – the one time he tried to feed Stiles sea-food, the human spit it out and said it _tasted like toilet water heated up_. “Second of all, it's lobster.” 

“You know, like...” Erica makes her hands into claws and snaps them in Stiles' face. 

Stiles furrows his brow, and looks at each and every person at the table individually – searching their faces for a punchline. “From the ocean? People eat out of the ocean?” When no one laughs, he just shakes his head like he doesn't get it, and then goes back to perusing the menu. “Is there shark on here, too? What about seahorse?” 

When the waitress comes and introduces herself, Stiles turns to look at Derek like _now who the hell is this person_? Derek bites his bottom lip to keep from laughing – maybe this is going to be more fun than he initially thought. 

After everyone orders their drinks, she leans down close to Stiles, and says, in the single most condescending tone of voice Derek has ever heard, “do you want a kids menu?” 

Stiles blinks at her, glancing at Derek. “I'm eighteen.” He says this like he isn't sure of the information – like, now that he's been questioned, even his _age_ is up for discussion. 

“Right,” she agrees with a smile. She knows exactly who he is and how old he is; that much is clear from how she's been shooting glances at Derek from the moment she walked over here. “But all this -” a point to the menu - “is _big_. You're _small_.” And, Christ, it's like she's explaining what colors are to a two year old. 

But, she's not exactly wrong. Derek's been giving Stiles about half of a normal portion than a wolf would eat since he got here – and even then, he sometimes can't finish all the food on his plate; though he looks guilty and tries to force himself to finish it all off, like he's imagining all the other humans that don't get to eat real food and has to eat it in their name, or something. Wolves eat, and eat, and eat. Humans are built differently. It's not just about Stiles being smaller than a wolf – he just doesn't have the same inner workings as far as Derek knows. Slower metabolisms, quicker to fill up. 

Telling Stiles that he has to eat off the kids menu, however much it might actually be a viable idea for him, just isn't an option. It'll make him feel insignificant and alienated and strange, like he has all his life. So, Derek waves her off and orders him something off the normal menu, figuring there's always take-away boxes. 

After that, dinner goes by fine. People give Stiles dirty looks and Derek glares right back at them. Erica talks for fifteen minutes straight about how she fantasizes every day about quitting her job, while Boyd sits there and nods like he's heard this exact same speech a million times now. When Stiles gets his pasta put in front of him, he stares at the size of his plate for several seconds, in disbelief, before he digs in. Lydia was pretty clear that eating _like an animal_ (her words) isn't okay in the presence of other wolves – so he at least spears his bow-ties and eats them bite by bite, chewing with his mouth closed and wiping at his face with a napkin instead of just the back of his hand. Progress. 

It's when Stiles has put himself into a food coma, leans back in his seat while blinking heavily like he's honestly about to fall asleep, that something unfortunate happens. 

Derek must be so focused on making sure Stiles doesn't actually go to sleep like a little kid in the middle of a restaurant (because people will mock him _mercilessly_ for that) that he doesn't notice the familiar scent coming his way until it's already too late to stop it. 

A huge hand slaps Derek on the back – when Derek looks up, his father is standing there above him. Staring directly at Stiles. 

“Dad,” Derek greets, shocked out of his mind. He's pretty sure the last time he spoke to his father face to face was fucking Christmas day. “What are you -”

“I came to see this creature here,” he leers at Stiles, who nervously blinks at Derek, and then smirks. “How quaint he is.” 

He reaches out and ruffles Stiles' hair, hard enough that Stiles nearly topples sideways out of his seat. Derek reaches up to pull his father's hand away, and the man starts laughing jovially, like it's all fun and games that he literally could've just _hurt_ Stiles. 

“Relax. You're so touchy about your things,” he rolls his eyes and retracts his hand, leaving Stiles with a mess on top of his head, and a scowl on his face. “And how are you enjoying your new pet, Derek? Satisfactory?” 

Stiles glares down at his hands, shame coloring his cheeks. He's been talked about like a _pet_ so much now, for years, but that kind of humiliating talk probably doesn't ever get old. It's not something a person can just get used to. 

Erica glares across the table at Derek, like _are you going to let him talk like that_? She's been on the other end of Derek's father's wandering hands many times before, and she's given Derek or anyone else that happened to be around at the time the exact same look before. It's just that, all those other times, Derek just sighed through his nose and sat there, because there's really nothing that he could do about it. His father's fucking gross. 

This time, it's just different. First of all, people are _watching_ this, hearing what Derek's father is saying about his son's supposed fiancee. Second of all, it's Stiles. And his father is looking at the human like he wants to take him home and – do God fucking knows what with him. The thought is worthy of puking inside of his mouth. 

“He's not a pet,” Derek says evenly, reaching out to try and fix Stiles' hair for him. “He's my -”

“Oh, right,” he laughs, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “How could I forget? He's the newest member of the family! I can't believe we haven't met before, Stuart -”

“ _Stiles_ ,” Derek corrects through grit teeth. Both Erica and Boyd look uncomfortable enough that they just keep shooting one another anxious glances – wondering what's about to happen, more likely than not. Erica's seen Derek blow up at his father, before. She knows how bad it can get. Stiles keeps right on staring at his hands, leg jiggling up and down like he wants to run far, far away. Derek doesn't blame him. 

Matter of fact, Derek is just about to pay the bill and drag Stiles out of here before his father can take this fucking charade any farther, when the man raises one finger in the air and says, “I have something for you.” He starts rifling around in the pockets of his pants, before coming up with one of those after-dinner chocolate mints that restaurants keep in bowls by the hostess podium. He unwraps it out of its foil, and then holds it out for Stiles, right in front of his mouth. “Go on,” he says with a grin, “it's a treat.” 

The great mystery of Derek's entire life has always been how the literal hell Talia and Timothy Hale wound up married to one another. Maybe Talia wasn't always a crusader (or, at least, pretending to be a crusader) for human rights, but she's spent years advocating for it at this point. You couldn't pay Talia a million dollars to hold a mint out in front of a human's face like balancing a bone on a dog's nose. She just wouldn't do it. 

It isn't like this is the worst thing with humans the man's ever done. Under the table, out of the public eye, he's done things with humans Derek can't even begin to think about. The fact that he's looking at Stiles like he wants to do exactly the same thing with him – when he's just an eighteen year old _kid_ – it's enough that Derek has to fucking wonder. 

Stiles isn't taking the mint. He sits there with his jaw clenched tight, looking pointedly down at the floor. 

“Hey,” he puts his hand on Stiles' shoulder, shakes him _hard_ once, “take it.” 

As many times as Derek repeats in his head _it would not be a good idea to get into a fight with your father right now, it would not be a good idea to get into a fight with your father right now_ , it just doesn't matter. Stiles nearly smacks his head down on top of the table from the force his father shook him at, and that's really just – _it_. 

Derek reaches out, grabs his father's wrist, and twists. 

Bone cracks, audibly. Audibly enough that most people within a fifteen foot radius of their table stop whatever they're doing and look up, eyes wide at hearing fighting sounds in the middle of one of the most expensive restaurants in LA. 

And if they didn't look up at that, they sure as shit do when his father keens in pain, flopping forward and desperately trying to free his broken and mangled wrist out of Derek's hand so he can start healing it. But, for right now, Derek's not letting go. 

“You listen to me,” he begins, voice low and menacing – and he doesn't give a shit if the entire restaurant is dead silent and listening to every word he's saying. He really doesn't give a _fuck_. “If you ever, ever _talk_ to him again, if you ever _touch_ him again, if you ever even fucking _look_ at him again, I will rip this hand clean off.” He leans closer into his face, looks him dead in the eyes. “Are we understood?” 

Stiles is looking between him and his father again, and again, like he can't decide what to focus on, what's more interesting, if he's even processing any of this, right now. He doesn't look _frightened_ , per se, but his heart is pounding in his chest and he seems anxious – maybe nervous about whether or not there's about to be a fight. 

When Derek releases the wrist, finally, his dad staggers back and away, cradling his injury up against his chest and muttering out a long string of curses. Derek definitely expects him to come over and start trying to punch Derek in the head, start fighting with him – but, then, Timothy's always cared about his public image as much as Talia always has. He's not willing to run the risk, even though a large portion of damage has already been done by Derek's display in front of everyone. 

With a snarl, he glares at Derek. “Your mother was right about you,” he hisses, “you're too sympathetic to those stupid little _whores_ ,” he gives Stiles a look. But, Stiles just meets his gaze evenly, like he's daring him to try something again. “Have fun with your _pet_ , Derek.” 

As soon as the door is shut behind them in the car and they're out of view of the cameras, Derek immediately starts speaking out loud the speech that he had planned in his head as he was paying the bill and walking Stiles out through the crowd. 

“I'm sorry,” he starts, and Stiles blinks at him. “I shouldn't have – I mean, I don't regret it. He deserved that, and he's deserved it for a long time,” a long, long, long time, “and the way he was talking to you and treating you just wasn't right. But I realize that it might've been scary, and I might have frightened you, so I just -”

“You don't scare me,” Stiles says before Derek starts babbling incoherently. 

Derek turns to him, raising his eyebrows, before looking back to the road. 

“You don't,” he reaffirms. “I've told you before – you make me feel safe.”

“So, watching me snap my father's wrist in two didn't _disturb_ you at all?” 

Stiles snorts, turning to glare out the window. “I've seen worse.” Lived through even worse as well, Derek thinks to himself. “What's there to be afraid of? You'd never do that to _me_.”

\----

Derek rips the lid off the bottle of wolf's brew he's had stowed underneath his sink, out of fear Stiles would get into it and make himself sick, and takes a good long swig. Stiles watches from his spot at the kitchen table, a smile playing along his lips.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “After a night like that, it helps.” 

“Really?” Stiles smiles with all his teeth. “Let me have some, then.” 

Derek purses his lips together and gives Stiles his best firm look – a _no you cannot have any alcohol_ look. But Stiles just raises his eyebrows and holds his hand out, probably knowing that he'll win either which way. Derek sighs, but holds the bottle out to him all the same. 

Stiles rips it out of his hand eagerly, and takes a sip. It's no surprise to Derek when he scrunches his face up in disgust, shakes his head and makes a noise of horror. “God, that's awful.” He takes another sip, same reaction. “I've eaten dirt that tasted better than this.” Another sip.

“Alcohol tastes as shitty as the problems that make you drink it,” Derek says, taking the bottle out of Stiles' hands as he sits down next to him at the table to have one of his own sips. “There's something poetic about that.” 

Stiles scrunches his nose up and takes the bottle again. “What's poetic about fermented flowers mashed up into a liquid?” 

“That's not quite how wolfsbane alcohol works,” Derek tells him with a smile, watching as Stiles takes another drink and puffs out his disgust, “but I see your point. I guess the poetic bit comes in when I'm drunk and stumbling around wondering why so and so broke up with me.” 

Stiles snorts, passes Derek the bottle. “I've never had a broken-up. I wouldn't know.” 

“A break-up,” Derek corrects mildly. 

A moment or so passes in quiet, except the sound of the alcohol sloshing around in the bottle as each of them take their turns having a sip. Derek doesn't think too much of it, at the moment – Stiles' sips are so small it'll take him another twenty to truly get drunk, even as a human. 

“So...” Stiles starts, splaying his fingers out in front of him on the table, staring pointedly down at them like he doesn't want to look Derek in the eyes for what he's about to say or ask. “What's – like – you and your parents...”

“Yeah?” Sip. “What about us?” 

He scratches at his hair. “You have a weird relationship.” 

“Weird how?” 

“You don't even like each other.” Stiles takes a long drink, this time, as if he's getting numb to the bitter taste of the alcohol now, and Derek thinks about cutting him off. 

“Ha,” Derek says this with no inflection. “Who likes their parents? All they do is fuck up your entire life because they treat you like you're still in the fucking womb and need to be tube fed and shit.” 

Stiles goes quiet for a second, analyzing Derek in all his entirety, while his skinny fingers clutch onto the neck of the bottle. One more swig, and he fixes Derek with an even stare. “I liked my parents.” The past-tense doesn't go over Derek's head, not at all, and he frowns at hearing it. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he feels guilty – sitting here complaining about his parents when this person in front of him has none to even complain about.

Then again, he guesses each hand of cards we're dealt has its own set of aces and jacks, some of them to win, and others to lose. “Because yours actually cared more about you than themselves, most likely.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles nods, finally pushing the bottle back over to Derek. He gets a far away look in his eyes for a moment, and Derek knows in the back of his mind he's off in the sunshine and away from the city lights, holding onto his mother's hand and living free. “Maybe it's a difference between the species.” 

“Nah. You got stuck with the single worst family in the entire wolf community,” he shrugs and drinks. “My dad's a fucking nightmare, my mom has her head so far up her own ass she doesn't know anyone else even exists, and my sisters -” he pauses, narrowing his eyes out into the distance, “...they're okay. Cora's kind of a narcissist, but when you're born pretty and rich, what do you expect?” 

“Which reminds me,” Stiles snaps his fingers and grins, “I finally saw one of those ads. With her and the hair.” 

“HA!” Derek nearly chokes on his own spit from laughing so hard; how many times he's fucking mocked his sister for this ridiculous commercials, how many times he's been forced to sit on video shoots feeling like his soul is leaving his fucking body. “Isn't it horrible?” 

“I didn't – get it?” He confesses, shaking his head like he's remembering it. “What was the dog doing?” 

“The dog has bad hair,” Derek clarifies matter-of-factly, remembering the poofy black poodle, “but Cora has good hair. Because she uses the product.” 

Stiles takes a drink and frowns. “Okay – but – it's a dog. Why is a dog being held to the same hair standard as a werewolf?” 

Derek waggles his finger in Stiles' face, laughing. “You don't understand the subtle nuances of modern advertising, Stiles. It doesn't have to make sense, so long as it sells.” 

Stiles laughs along with him for a second, and then he takes a deep breath, a smile still on his face. “You know – I don't think I got the worst luck, with your family.” 

“You _don't_ know them well enough,” Derek counters, half serious and half kidding at once. It gets that way, when talking about your family, doesn't it? Every insult is half true and half not. 

“Maybe not,” Stiles agrees. “But I know _you_ well enough.” 

Derek meets his eyes, and they stare at each other from across the table. “You think so?” 

“I know enough.” 

“Enlighten me, then,” Derek motions with two fingers, like _come on_. “What's so fucking great about me? I've got no job,” he counts this off on one finger, “no fucking – well. I can't even think of anything else. No job. That's that.” 

“Money doesn't matter,” Stiles insists, rolling his eyes.

“Ah,” Derek holds his arms out and smirks, “people with no money are always saying money doesn't matter. No one worries about money more than those who have it.” 

“Money has nothing to do with who you are. If money made good people, then the wolves wouldn't have enslaved us to begin with.” 

Derek hasn't heard the word _enslaved_ used in reference to what the humans are to wolves in a very, very long time. If he's ever heard it in any current vernacular, actually. Hearing it from Stiles has him blinking for just a second in surprise, to hear him speak so frankly about it. Derek doesn't really have to think about what happens to the humans, or what they are, or what goes on, or what the terminology would be. 

Stiles lived it, though. And if he says that what's happened to him in his lifetime is slavery, then he gets to decide that. Oppressors don't get to choose what is or isn't oppression, not when they're the ones holding the chains. 

“That's aside from the point,” Stiles waves his hand awkwardly in the air, and Derek decides he's drunk. Derek's barely even tipsy, but Stiles is _drunk_. “My point is having a job isn't what makes you – like – you. You can't plaster hundred dollar bills over everything and think it makes you good. You just can't. When I look at you,” Stiles says, pointing over the table at Derek, “I see a good person. For me to say that about a _wolf_ is...” he leans back in his seat and makes an explosion sort of noise, motioning his hand around his head, like his mind is blowing up. 

“Yeah,” Derek nods, though he's not sure if he necessarily agrees, and is eager for a subject change. “When I look at you, I see -” he cuts off, because he's not nearly drunk enough to have an admission like that out in the open. But, Stiles is drunk enough to push him by kicking Derek's shin under the table, prompting him with an eyebrow raise. “...I see mine.” 

Stiles is quiet for a moment. Long enough that Derek stares down at the nearly empty bottle in his hands and traces the grooves of it with his fingers, just for something to do except for sitting in this awkward silence in the wake of something stupid he's said. Then, Stiles is reaching across the table, and grabbing at Derek's arm. 

“You're not the first wolf to say that to me,” Stiles says very evenly, and for a second Derek worries he's really gone and fucked this entire thing up, that he's acting just like every other fucking horrible possessive wolf treating a human like a possession and a thing instead of a person. “...but for the first time, I don't mind that.” 

One thing leads to another. The bottle gets pushed aside, placed on top of the table, and Stiles says something about watching television with an eyebrow raise, and then they're on the couch, and then neither of them is even reaching for the remote to turn the television on, and then Stiles is grabbing Derek by his chin and pulling himself closer to him, and they're kissing. 

They've kissed enough times by now that Stiles is better at it – possibly even _good_ at it. At least he doesn't dribble that much slobber all over everything anymore, and at least Derek's gone a while without getting his tongue bitten. It's a good thing that Stiles is so fucking weak either which way, otherwise those tongue bites would've really hurt for a second or two. 

Stiles pulls himself up and into Derek's lap, straddling the wolf's thighs and pushing his hips forward and up so the front of his pants scrapes against Derek in a press, and Derek sighs through his nose in contentment. There's just something about touching Stiles that really just – gets to him. If it's the way he feels so soft and his skin feels so smooth, or if it's the way he's so fragile that really all Derek can do is let him take the lead and have the control, or if it's just how he tastes, Derek isn't sure. 

All he really knows is that it's not like anything else he's ever had before. And the thought of not having it anymore is so deplorable to him, to his wolf, that he nearly whines thinking about it. 

In a way, his wolf has already snapped its teeth into Stiles' shoulder, holding on for dear life, growling low in its throat every time Derek thinks about giving him up. It isn't fair, it isn't _fair_ , but the right thing very rarely is. It's hard talking sense into a wolf, though, so Derek lets it growl and snarl, curling itself around Stiles protectively. 

Stiles pulls his lips off of Derek's, smirks with an eyebrow raise, and, with absolutely no subtlety, grabs Derek's dick. 

Derek shouts, his leg jerking in surprise, and he slaps Stiles' hand away. “ _What_ ,” he demands, eyes widening, “are you doing?” 

“What?” Stiles asks, wide-eyed and innocent. Derek feels like slapping his hands over his face and disappearing, somehow – he just fucking knows he's going to have to explain to Stiles what the fucking issue with all of this is. “You don't want to?” 

“Stiles. It's not that,” he says, putting as much emphasis into this as possible. “It's not that I don't _want_ to, it's that – it's -”

Stiles blinks at him, looks down at Derek's crotch and frowns. Derek really feels like pinching his cheek and telling him to fucking stop fucking staring at Derek's hard-on right now, stop making him feel like a bigger pervert than he already fucking does. 

“...first of all, I'm pretty sure you're drunk.” 

“I'm sober,” he slurs, and Derek huffs out a laugh. 

“Now I know your limit.” 

“I'm not -”

“Second of all -” he interrupts. “I don't want to hurt you, Stiles.” 

For a second, Stiles just glares at him. He clenches his jaw closed and then works the muscles in agitation, narrowing his eyes. 

“Don't get mad,” Derek warns him, “you're smaller -”

“I'm not!” He defends. “I'm fucking – I'm not _that_ small! I'm sick of people saying that...” he trails off like he's imagining wringing the neck of every wolf who's ever said the same thing to him, and Derek laughs again. 

“I didn't say small, I said _smaller_. There's a difference.” The reality is that Stiles really isn't too small. It's just that weres average out at a specific height, and humans are always at bare minimum a solid five inches shorter than that. Stiles is just short enough that his forehead comes up to somewhere around Derek's chest. Which is smaller. Irrefutably. Stiles is just being stubborn. “That aside, you're weak -”

"I'll kick _your_ ass!” 

Derek reaches up and hooks his hands underneath Stiles' underarms, picks him up and off of himself, and drops him on the couch next to him. Stiles, disgruntled, annoyed, and drunk, kicks his legs indignantly and flops down onto his knees on the carpet in front of the couch. Before Derek knows it, he's walking on his knees to the coffee table, rolling up the sleeve of his button down, and smacking his elbow down on top of the table. 

He looks Derek in the eyes, and says, serious as anything else, “arm-wrestle me.” 

Derek tries to school is face into anything, absolutely anything, aside from amusement. And fails. “Oh, really?” 

“Yes. I might not be able to beat you,” he waggles his fingers in the air, “but I can try.”

Of all the ridiculous things Derek's ever done, this just about tops the list. 

All the same, he flops down to his own knees in front of the coffee table, rolls up his sleeve, and drops his elbow parallel to Stiles'. “Okay.” 

Stiles grabs Derek's hand in his own, and Derek has to keep from laughing then and there. He's really squeezing, Derek can tell, but there's almost no pressure that Derek can feel. Jesus Christ. “Don't hold back on me,” he warns. 

“I wouldn't dream of it, Stiles,” Derek humors him with a smirk. “If you win, it'll be fair and square.” 

“Okay.” He gets a look of such determination on his face, Derek feels bad for laughing. But he can't fucking help it. Stiles ignores him save for a quick glare, and then raises his chin in the air. “One,” he gets more comfortable in his spot, like gearing up to put all his energy into this, “two,” Derek starts thinking about what he should buy for dinner tomorrow night, “three!” 

All Derek does is keep his arm in place. He puts absolutely no push or pull against Stiles – literally just leaves his hand and arm there for Stiles to do with what he can. And, oh boy, does he try. Like, full body pushing against Derek's arm, biting his lip in concentration, face turning red with the exertion, trying. But it's no use. Derek's not budging. 

Stiles quits for a second, breathes. Then he's at it again, pushing with all his fucking might and body weight and whatever else he might have, and Derek sighs. “It's time for bed.” 

“ _No_ ,” Stiles hisses, standing up and pushing his entire body against Derek's arm. But, again. It doesn't even budge. “Are you _kidding_ me?”

\----

Later that night, _later_ later, Derek wakes up to three light knocks on his back door.

He blinks his eyes open, and sees Stiles fast asleep next to him, sprawled out spider monkey style, one arm draped over Derek's chest, another reaching towards his own pillow, his legs tangled up in the sheets. Glancing over at his bedside clock, he sees that it's two o'clock in the morning. 

Blearily, he thinks he imagined the knocks, and drops his head back down onto his pillow right next to Stiles', curling closer to him to fall back asleep.

The knocks happen again, and Derek huffs. He fantasizes for a second about just ignoring it – but thinks that if someone is coming over to his house at this hour of the night, it's either very very important, or very very bad. 

Grumbling, he carefully moves Stiles' arm off of his chest and watches as Stiles shifts in his sleep, flopping over to his own side of the bed and smacking his lips. Completely dead to the world. 

When he flicks on his back light and sees Scott McCall and Allison Argent standing there, he frowns. He can't fucking imagine what this could possibly be about. He runs a hand through his bed hair, unlocks the door, and frowns at them. 

“Stiles is asleep,” he says, motioning towards the steps. “I'm not going to wake him up.” 

Scott looks him over – the bare chest, pajama pants, messed up hair – and frowns right back at him. “We came here to see you.” 

That gives Derek some pause. He raises his eyebrows, before beckoning them inside. “At two in the morning,” he mutters as he closes the door behind them and flicks on the kitchen light, “it better be good.” 

“We came specifically when we knew Stiles would be asleep,” Allison says quietly, settling herself down on the same chair Stiles had been sitting in hours beforehand, holding a deep purple folder in her hands. Derek would recognize that color anywhere; Argent family insignia and all. “We didn't want to -” she looks to Scott for back up, trailing off. 

“We didn't want to upset him,” Scott finishes for her evenly, taking his own seat. “Or – you know. Give him any false hope.” 

Derek leans back against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks upwards, to the ceiling in the living room, where he knows right there Stiles is lying asleep in his bed. Then, he looks back at the two betas to find them staring at him expectantly. “Okay,” he agrees slowly. “What's this about?” 

Scott runs a hand through his hair, drags it down to the back of his neck before puffing out a heavy breath. “Remember when you called me the other day? Asking me about – Stiles' father?” 

“Yes.”

“And I told you he was alive?” 

Derek pauses. Gets a really ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Yes.” 

“Well, he still is,” Scott continues, and Derek relaxes. “Um – definitely. We looked into it. Because – I just felt like we had to look into it.” 

“Asking a question like that usually means there's a reason,” Allison nods her head. “And there's only one reason you would ask that.” 

There really is only one reason Derek would ever want to know about Stiles' father. He never told Stiles that he asked Scott that, never told Stiles that he knows that the man is alive even though that is information that Stiles would definitely like to know. Because, like Scott said, he didn't want to upset Stiles. 

“You want to try and send him back.” Allison pauses, biting her lip. “Right?” 

Derek thinks about how many times he's made poor choices. How many times he's done the wrong thing just because it's what would've been easiest for him to handle, how many times he's held onto something for far, far too long, even while knowing that it was already disintegrating in between his fingers. “Yeah. Yeah, I – yeah.” The words burn coming out. 

The two of them share a look, and a small smile creeps its way across Allison's face. 

“Easier said than done, though. I don't know the first thing about the sanctuaries,” Derek glances again to the ceiling, listens for Stiles' heavy breathing. “I wouldn't know where to begin.” 

“Well...that's sorta why we're here,” Allison opens up her purple Argent folder, and pulls out a crisp white sheet of paper with black type on it. She holds it delicately in her finger tips, as if it could go up in flames at any second. “You might not know about the sanctuaries, but I do.” 

“Right,” Derek nods his head. “Because your family has been raiding them for years. Is that about the size of it?” 

Scott opens his mouth to defend his girlfriend, his eyebrows coming down angrily, but Allison stops him with a firm head nod. “Yes, they used to.”

“ _Used_ to. Is that what they tell you?” 

“I know for a fact that they don't do that anymore,” Allison says this with a bit of a snarl, narrowing her eyes. “Gerard was like that. He's not in control anymore, and neither is Kate. My father put a stop to that almost two years ago.”

Derek frowns. “But if Kate got into office -”

“She'd start the trade back up again,” Allison nods her head sadly. “Yes.” 

Hm. Maybe there is such a thing as the lesser of two evils, where Talia and Kate are concerned. 

“That's not the point,” Scott waves his hand dismissively. “The point is, you want to bring Stiles back home to his father, and we know how to do it.”

Derek glances down at his feet. It's funny how much time he used to spend thinking _man if only I could bring Stiles back home, set him free from all of this, I would do it. I would do that. It would be the right thing to do and Stiles would be so much better off, so much happier._ Because he knew that this situation, the one they're still in, is wrong. It's wrong and it's not good for him and it's not good for Stiles either. 

But, now that the opportunity has presented itself, he's got a lump in his throat. A monster deep inside of him is snarling _no, no, no. Don't let go. Hold on._

“Right?” Allison repeats, giving Derek a heavy look. “ _Right_?” 

“Stiles deserves to go home,” and Scott sounds like he's trying to convince Derek of this, like Derek doesn't already know what Stiles deserves, like Derek doesn't already know that Stiles deserves every last second of the life that was stolen from him, and to refuse him that would make Derek just another one of the wolves that have dragged him down since the beginning. “He needs to – go. He has to go.” 

“Yeah,” Derek agrees in a rasp, nodding his head. “Yeah.” He has to go. The wolf snarls, smelling Stiles' scent in the kitchen, in the living room couch, in the fibers of the carpet, and tries to force Derek to imagine losing that scent. Does he want to? Does he really want to lose that?

“So, are you on board with this? Can we count on you? This entire thing will fall apart if we can't have your help, Derek.” Another sinking ship, then.

Derek has so many options lined up and waiting for him. The entire world at his fingertips, because he was born a wolf, a wolf with money to boot. He could do anything, if he really set his mind to it. He could become anything he wanted to. 

While, really, all Stiles has ever done is trade in one cage for the next. And that's not right. That's not fair. 

“Yeah, of course,” Derek agrees, and he tries to make himself sound firm instead of like he's about to collapse in on himself. “Of course I – yeah.” 

Stiles just has to go. He was never meant to be here to begin with. 

Ships sink. Nothing lasts forever. Time goes on. All the cliches in the world.


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so number one yes it is five chapters instead of four now and I don't know why this keeps happening TBH! I honestly had the entire thing planned and outlined if you had asked me if this specific part was going to take 20 fuckin k I would've said no damn way but here we are today. Chances are, the final part will be 20k too. Which means I'll have written my first 100k fic. Which........lmao.......what the fUCK!!!!!! THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN memewhile I'm supposed to be doing nanowrimo on something else 
> 
> number two I am so sorry this took so long :( most of you who have read my other WIP's or really anything else by me know that I'm not usually one for dragging my feet, but this was really, really difficult to write. I must have written and rewritten the sex scene a half dozen times, and the rest was just sooo...emotionally draining....case in point this chapter is very :( and I can bet a lot of you will be unhappy with how things went down, but things always have to get really bad before they ever get any better so. Things get really bad lmao. Idk why I ever thought this would only take me 10k
> 
> number three, a small trigger warning. There is a part during the sex in which Derek _almost_ loses control of himself and _almost_ hurts Stiles. Nothing winds up happening but just so we're all in the know and there are no surprises I thought I'd tell you bc it might be a little disturbing.
> 
> I hope that the final chapter will NOT take another 11 days to work on, but I do tend to struggle with endings so :/

“Do you think that my dad will even recognize me?” 

Stiles is eating yogurt out of a cup with his finger, watching a cartoon show on television with one eye and staring at Derek beside him on the bed with the other. He's never seen someone so fucking adept at multitasking in his entire life, and that's including Talia. 

“I mean – of course he has to. Right? He, like, created me. But then I wonder if maybe I look really different now. I used to keep my hair so short when I was younger but I've always had it grown out since I left home...” he gives Derek a serious look. “Do you think I should shave my hair off before we go? Just to be safe?” 

Derek huffs out a sigh and rubs one eye. It's been like this ever since Derek sat Stiles down with Allison and Scott and delivered him the news that they figured out a way to get him back home to be with his father. He cried about it for ten minutes, which Derek thought was a bad sign, and then he just started _talking_ about it. For days, he's just been fucking _talking_ about it, on a constant loop – _what if no one even remembers me, what if we get there and they can't tell I'm really Stiles, do you think my old bed is still in my room, what about my friends I wonder if they're still there, what about – do you think – I wonder – blah blah blah_. 

In a way, Derek can't really fault him for that. It makes perfect sense that he'd be so excited about it, considering he's been waiting years for this. For as long as he's been a teenager, he's wanted this. All he's ever really and truly wanted is to go _home_ , and he deserves to talk about it and be excited now that it's finally happening. And Derek can't fault him for that. 

But, the ugly, selfish part of Derek just wants him to _not_. That part of Derek doesn't even want to hear it. He doesn't want to think about Stiles being so happy to get away from him, he doesn't want to think about Stiles going someplace else where he'll stay forever and never come back, he just – he doesn't want to think about it. He's only got a single night left with Stiles, and he doesn't want to spend it exclusively thinking about how he's going to be gone. Soon. 

The only times that Stiles really ever stops talking about it or stops being excited is when he stops for a second to just stare at Derek. Either like he's waiting for Derek to say something, or waiting for Derek to do something – or just...waiting. Derek doesn't know what it is. He can't identify it, and Stiles never says anything during these moments. 

“Your dad would be able to recognize you if your skin turned purple, Stiles,” Derek assures him, watching as he hooks his index finger and scoops out another wad of yogurt to drip into his mouth. “Don't worry so much.” 

“It's just been so long. It's been -” he squints, holds his sticky hand out and starts counting on his fingers. One, two, three, four, five, other hand, one, two - “seven years. That's like – babies were born on the day I left home, and now they're seven years old and can understand words and shit.” Seven year old kids can understand a lot more than just _words and shit_ , but Derek gets the point. 

“Long time,” he agrees with a nod, staring pointedly at the TV. 

A beat of silence passes – Stiles scraping along the edges of his yogurt cup and squinting at the television with a thoughtful expression. “And what if -”

“Stiles,” Derek puts a hand on the human's shoulder and shakes him as gently as possible. “I don't know why you're thinking worst case scenario with all this, but I promise you – you're worrying about nothing.” Stiles blinks his eyes at him, but listens. “Your dad will recognize you, we'll get inside just fine, no one is going to stone you to death for being an outsider, none of it. Just – shh.” 

Some more blinking, and then Stiles' shoulders are sagging and he's leaning back into the pillows, letting his empty yogurt roll into his lap, abandoned. “I'm nervous.” 

“I can tell.” 

“All this time away,” he picks at a loose thread on his jeans, puckering his lips, “I must be different now.” 

Beyond any shadow of a doubt, Stiles is _different_ now. A year spent as a slave working in a factory with little food and a pile of hay to sleep on, another two or three years spent living in a cage and chained to a pole in the backyard starving, another three years in an orphanage where he was treated like a burden, and now this. There's no way in Hell that Stiles is coming back to his father the same kid he was when he left. There's just no way. 

Experiences shape people. You can't go through something like that and then just shake the dust off and revert right back into what you were doing before it all – you never come out the other side of anything exactly as you were before it. Change is inevitable. 

“I'm just scared that I'm too – fucked up now.” He sniffles and turns his face away, like he doesn't want Derek to see him almost crying even though Derek has seen this exact same sight a dozen times by now. “That he's not going to want me.” 

“That's literally stupid,” Derek says to him, all tact out the window. “It's really not a possibility, Stiles, I promise you that.” 

“But what if -”

Derek leans forward and cuts Stiles off with a kiss – a hard, quick thing that has Stiles widening his eyes and gripping onto Derek's shirt in surprise. When Derek pulls off, he cradles Stiles' face in his hand and looks him directly in the eyes. “Your father loves you, and has been waiting for you. He's not going to care how different you are.” 

Stiles blinks back at him owlishly, cheeks slightly squished underneath Derek's fingers, and he doesn't say anything for a moment or so. Just stares. 

Before too long, Stiles is smiling, gently pulling his face away from Derek's fingers and tilting his head to the side. “Can I ask for something?” 

“You can ask for anything.” 

“Okay,” Stiles agrees slowly, before flicking his eyes off to the side like he's nervous. “But – before I ask, keep in mind it's our last night together. And I don't ask for much.”

“All right.” This doesn't sound good. Derek can only hope that Stiles won't be asking if he can drive again. Derek is about a million percent positive that Stiles' feet won't even be able to reach the fucking pedals, even with the seat adjusted all the way up. They're built for wolves, after all. 

Stiles fidgets his sticky yogurt fingers for a second, averting his eyes and pursing his lips. “Can I – can _we_...” he doesn't finish – but it's not like he has to. Derek can read clear as day what Stiles wants judging from other questions he's asked Derek before, from how he won't make eye contact, from the blush that rises up on his cheeks.

“Stiles -” Derek palms his forehead. “ _Why_ do you do this to me?” 

Abruptly, Stiles is flicking off the television, tossing his empty yogurt cup off to the side, and leaning back on his hands, stretching the full length of his upper body out in a line for Derek to look at if he wanted to, and raises his eyebrows. “I know you think about me.” 

With his eyes fixed pointedly on Stiles' face and nowhere else, Derek scowls. “Stiles, why do you get so hyperfocused on _one_ thing, and then -”

“Why do you say one thing and do another?” Stiles challenges evenly, not breaking Derek's eye contact for a second. “Why do you say you don't want to -”

“That's not what I said -”

“But then stare at me when you think I'm not looking?” 

There's no use in denying that one. Of course Derek stares at Stiles at every possible opportunity, of fucking course he does – he's known since the second that they met that Stiles was attractive and that Derek directly was attracted to him. But, also since the second that they met, Derek knew that Stiles was something he just couldn't have. Not like that. 

“You want me,” Stiles affirms with as much conviction as _the sky is blue_ , “you have wanted me. I'm not so stupid, you know? Maybe I can't smell things the way the wolves can,” he reaches one of his hands up from behind him and places the flat of his palm directly on Derek's chest – not pressing or even moving it, just leaving it there. “...but I can just see it in the way you look at me.” 

Derek shouldn't even be humoring this. He really fucking shouldn't be. He should be shoving Stiles' hand and all of its implications off of him, pushing Stiles away, telling him to go the fuck to sleep because he has a huge day tomorrow. That's what he should be doing. It's what any sane person would do in this situation. 

Instead, Derek swallows thickly and looks away from Stiles' eyes. “And how do I _look at you_ , Stiles?” His voice doesn't sound quite like his own. 

From the corner of his eye, Derek watches Stiles' lips curl into a smile. Not really a happy smile, but a vindicated smile. Maybe the smile of someone who thinks they're about to get what they want. “You look at me like no one else ever has before.” His fingers jerk on Derek's chest just slightly, and then they're sliding up, and down, again and again. “Everyone else always looks at me like I'm so pitiful, or I'm so pathetic, or I'm so worthless -”

“No one thinks -”

“But that's not how _you_ look at me,” Stiles talks right over Derek's attempt at an interruption, raising his chin in the air and tightening his jaw. “You look at me like I'm a person. I can't tell you how much that means to me.” 

“Once again, Stiles,” Derek grabs Stiles' fingers to still them, swatting them away from his chest and turning to meet the human's eyes, “you don't owe me anything just because I treat you how you deserve.” 

“It's not about that,” he says back in a small voice. “It's not about _that_. I'm not just mindlessly latching on to the first person that doesn't lock me into a cage at night, Derek, don't belittle my fucking feelings.” 

“ _What_ feelings?” Stiles tries tugging his fingers free from Derek, and Derek lets them go for him as he waits for Stiles' response. 

“I can't explain that.” Stiles narrows his eyes and shakes his head. “I couldn't put that into words, Derek. What about you, since you're so _smart_? What do _you_ feel about _me_?” 

Color rises to Derek's cheeks, and he closes his mouth. He knows that he couldn't begin to explain that, either. How it feels to touch Stiles, anywhere, anyway at all, how it feels to be near him, and how he smells, and how soft he is, and how fragile. How much Derek wishes that he could keep Stiles, forever, that he could wrap himself around him and make sure nothing bad ever happens to him ever again. There's nothing succinct enough to wrap that up into a single emotion, so Derek just looks away again. 

Stiles must take this as the silent answer he had been expecting and hoping for, because he reaches his hand up, the same one that Derek just shoved away from himself, and puts it right back where it was before. Undeterred. “Forget about the fact that I'm human for ten seconds, Derek.” 

“I couldn't forget about that,” he says back evenly, shaking his head. And it's true. There's no way to ignore it. 

“Forget about the situation, then,” Stiles amends. “Forget that you paid for me and forget that your mother forced us together. Okay? It's just us. You and me.” 

Derek looks into Stiles' eyes, and nods, once. He could forget about the entire world, this way. 

“All you need to remember is that I want you,” to emphasize his point, he wraps his hand around the back of Derek's neck and gives his most valiant effort of pulling Derek closer to himself. Derek barely moves under all the pressure Stiles tries to give, but the point gets across well enough. “I've never felt this way about anybody else.” There's a pause – Stiles lowering his eyes so his lashes rest against his cheeks. “I don't know if I ever will again.” 

Derek, really, has nothing to say to that. No protests to come up with, no good defense, no real reason for why he should push Stiles away, right now – but still, somehow, he thinks that should be the right thing to do. He thinks that a good person would push Stiles away. And Derek has long believed that he's just _not_ a good person. 

He opens his mouth even though nothing comes out, but Stiles knows he's still trying to argue, because he presses forwards again. 

“There's no one else. I don't want anyone else. I don't want my first time with _anyone_ else, Derek. Please. I know you want to, and I want to, so what's the problem?” 

Silence. Stiles leaning forwards for a kiss and Derek allowing this, pressing his lips softly back against Stiles' and holding him up by his hips to grant him better access. Derek knows that his mind's already been made up, was made up a while ago even before he realized it – but he isn't ready to admit that. Not yet. 

“Come on,” Stiles breathes into Derek's neck. There's a clicking sound somewhere below their heads, and investigation of this leads Derek to finding Stiles unbuckling his belt, his jeans, trying to shove them down his hips. When he notices he's not going to be able to get very far with that in the position he's in, his skinny fingers start pawing around _Derek's_ belt buckle. 

“Stiles,” Derek says in a soft voice, wrapping his fingers around Stiles' bony little wrist to stop him. “You don't realize – I could really, _really_ hurt you.” 

“Again with that?” Stiles' eyebrows drift together in agitation and he frowns. “Derek – you wouldn't hurt me! It's, like, not possible for you.” 

Derek rolls his eyes. How fucking naive and trusting Stiles can be for a person who's been through what he has. “Remember your finger?” 

“That was an accident!” 

“Yes, it was,” Derek nods in agreement. “Another accident just like that could happen – is more likely to happen if I – if we – if I _let_ myself -”

Stiles waits, sitting on the bed beside Derek looking entirely confused, like he's just not getting it. At all. 

“...I could lose control. Okay? Even if just for a second...” 

Derek has imagined this scenario a million times over in his head. He's had sex before, of course, and he knows what he and all other wolves get like when they're in the thick of it. He's clawed at his partner's necks on accident, bitten them, grabbed them harder than he intended to – and all of that was fine, when he was sleeping with wolves. 

Stiles isn't a wolf. Stiles would snap as easily as a twig if Derek lost his cool for even a millisecond. 

All the same, Stiles doesn't look convinced. “So, what? You think you're going to break my hip bone while we're in the middle of it?” 

“Don't be so cavalier -”

“I'm not!” Stiles defends, even though the smirk he gets on his face indicates that he is _so_ being fucking cavalier. “I'm just saying! The part that you're so worried about is the actual, like...” he trails off, motioning his hand in the air. 

“The sex part of the sex, Stiles. Yes.” 

He puckers his lips like he's thinking, using that brain of his to come up with a solution to this problem. What a ridiculous problem for two people to have, honestly. After a second, Stiles' eyes light up like he's thought of something, that hypothetical lightbulb going off in his head, and Derek gets a bad feeling about this. “Then maybe you should just let me control everything.” 

Taken aback, Derek frowns. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean,” Stiles reaches over and starts tugging on Derek's shirt with the clear intent of ripping it up and over his head, “you just sit there and I'll do it.” 

“That's not -”

“Derek. Every month you resist turning into a wolf-man to run through the streets and terrorize the villagers,” he's still tugging even though he's getting absolutely nowhere with it, “but you think you'll lose control over a little bit of sex?” 

_It's not just the sex_ , Derek thinks bitterly as he scans his eyes over Stiles' face again and again. It's really, really not just the sex. Derek knows that with any other human, he'd probably have enough control to not hurt them any more than some bruising. But the thing about Stiles is that he isn't just _any other_ human. That much has become crystal clear to Derek in the past couple of weeks. 

A few more tugs and a mutter of annoyance from Stiles, and Derek finally rolls his eyes and swats Stiles' hand away, moving to make himself more comfortable on the bed. Stiles leans back to give him room, watching with a smile on his face as Derek presses his back up against the headboard and sighs through his nose. “I genuinely believe,” Stiles starts, shifting just slightly closer to where Derek is sitting, “that you're not going to hurt me, Derek. Why do you have so little belief in yourself?” 

Sitting there watching Stiles move closer to him, it's really almost like he doesn't have a choice. When else is he going to get this opportunity? He doesn't have any more time to waste, now. It's now or never. And the thought of _never_ – never getting to feel Stiles' skin underneath his own hands, or feel what it's like to be _in_ him - that's almost unbearable. 

Derek sighs. “Can you follow some rules?” 

Stiles' eyebrows lift again and he smirks. “ _Rules_?” 

Derek gives him a look. “Not like that. I mean, just – guidelines. If something should go wrong -” Stiles starts taking his shirt off and Derek pauses for half a second, eyeing all that pale skin and his tattoos, before clearing his throat and continuing, “...then you have to promise me you'll get off of me.” 

He tosses his shirt off the bed, and tilts his head to the side as he examines Derek very critically. “What is it you're so afraid of happening, here, Derek? You think you'll accidentally claw my skull open?” 

Not exactly. 

“I just need you to promise me, Stiles. If at any point I start to freak you out -” 

“Okay. Okay,” Stiles holds his hands out and nods his understanding, “if you go wolf on me, I'll grab a rolled up newspaper, or the hose, and -”

“ _Stiles_.” 

“Okay!” He lets out a half laugh and then quickly schools his expression into something more serious as he takes in the look the Derek gives him. “I'm sorry. I'm taking it seriously. I promise that if the claws come out, I'll leave the room until you calm down. Okay?” 

Derek sets his jaw and listens to the sound of Stiles tugging his pants off of his hips, cloth rustling against the sheets, while Derek thumbs along the hem of his own shirt. “It's unlikely to happen.” It sounds more like he's convincing himself. 

“ _I_ know that,” Stiles says back with a huff as his pants thump to the ground. “I was thinking that you didn't, actually.” 

Off his shirt goes. “It's just – a safety precaution.” 

“Safety precaution,” Stiles repeats, eyes moving along the tan expanse of Derek's bare chest, out in the open now. “That's really turning me on.” 

Derek smirks, hands moving down to his pants. “That's our kink. Safety first.” 

“Next time, I'll wear a hard hat and reflective clothing.” 

It's a bit of a dark joke, and both of them know it, since there really won't _be_ a _next time_ as far as they're aware of. This is their last night together before Stiles gets sent back home to his father, far far away in the human sanctuary he came from. As such, this is the last piece of each other they're ever going to get. Maybe it's the most intimate piece, the one they've been waiting for, but Derek doesn't know if it's ever going to be _enough_ for him, in the long run. So, he doesn't laugh as he slides the last of his clothing off. He just tries to focus. 

Commit everything to memory. 

“Okay, so,” Derek starts, clearing his throat and trying to get a good long look at Stiles from the corner of his eye, without ogling him like a pervert. “...I have some lube, and -”

“You're being _so_ clinical about this.” Before Derek realizes what's happening, he has a lap full of Stiles. Stiles' thighs straddling his hips, Stiles' hand coming back to curl around the back of his neck, Stiles' skin dangerously close to where Derek's fucking erection is getting more and more urgent. “It's sex. Right?” 

Derek swallows and tries to think clearly for a second over the sound of Stiles' heart beat and the smell of him so close. “It's your first time.” 

“I don't need an instruction manual,” Stiles raises one eyebrow,” I know how to do it.” 

“Oh, really?” Derek raises an eyebrow right back at him, finally relaxing underneath his fingers. “Prove it, then. Since you're supposed to be _in control_.” 

Stiles smiles at him, and with their heads this close together, Derek can see how his entire face changes with the movement. “Well,” he starts, voice low and quiet. “First you have to – um -” unbelievably, he starts blushing, even with that smirk still on his face, and Derek wonders where it exactly it is that he ever learned about sex. More likely than not, he's read some book or seen some movie and now thinks that he's an expert, which is just how Stiles thinks about every thing. “...get me ready. Right?” 

Derek reaches over to his bedside table, opens up the drawer, and pulls out a tube of lube he's had sitting in there for god knows how long. There hasn't been a lot of time for Derek's Personal Time with Stiles sleeping in the same bed as him, so he's reserved almost all of that to the shower where water worked as well as anything else. He has no idea what Stiles has been doing. He's tried not to think about it, honestly, but knew that he had to be doing _something_ as an eighteen year old. 

Stiles watches as Derek squirts a hefty amount onto his fingers, and then clears his throat. “Um – should I stay – just like this?” 

“You could,” Derek says as he slicks his fingers. “Like this is good. If you just – kneel up and lean forwards, I can...” 

Stiles pulls himself higher up on his knees, wraps his arms around Derek's neck, and drapes himself forwards so that he forehead is pressed against the side of Derek's head. Like this, his legs spread out wider and his body in perfect reach, it should be easier. “Okay,” Stiles murmurs close to Derek's ear. “Are you gonna do it?” 

Derek stretches his hand out, feels around for a second, before his index finger prods lightly at Stiles' rim. Stiles makes a small noise of surprise, but otherwise doesn't react much – his entire body going still and rigid, preparing. He has no idea how much pressure to put on Stiles as a human, how much more or less difficult this will be because he's smaller and weaker, but it's not like he has a ton of time to sit there hemming and hawing about it. Stiles is tightening his arms around Derek and breathing into the shell of his ear, anxious in anticipation, and Derek is _right there_ , ready to go at a moment's notice. 

He swallows, and presses his finger half an inch in as gently as physically possible. It goes as steadily as it ever has with any other person he's done this for, if maybe a little tighter. He presses deeper, and Stiles huffs out a breath. “That feels weird.” 

“Weird is okay,” Derek tells him, moving around a little inside him. “So long as it doesn't hurt.” 

“Doesn't hurt. Just – _weird_. Like, I never realized how big your fingers are.” 

Derek huffs out a laugh. “They're not that big.” 

“Shove one up your ass and then come and say that to me.” 

For a few more seconds, it's quiet except for Stiles' breathing in Derek's ear; Derek deems him good enough for a second finger, and slides that one inside as cautiously as possible. Stiles' grip turns even tighter, his breath hitching and then starting up again a little bit more deeply, and Derek pauses. “Okay?” 

“Fine,” Stiles says. “Good, maybe. I don't know. _Weird_.” 

It's _weird_ when Derek scissors him for a minute and it's _weird_ when he hooks his fingers and it's just _weird_ – that's Stiles' commentary for a pretty large portion of the fingering section of the sex. Just weird. Derek's never had fingers inside of him, much less an actual dick, so it's not like he has a lot of experience himself to say whether fingering is, as a matter of fact, a weird experience. He takes Stiles at his word. 

What's _not_ weird is when Derek presses just another inch deeper inside of Stiles, bumps the tips of his fingers against a very familiar bundle of nerves, and Stiles jerks. He cries out in surprise, moves his hips back to try and press Derek's fingers deeper. “That was -” he trails off, like he's too embarrassed to utter the actual word out loud. 

“Yeah,” Derek says for him, running his free hand up and down Stiles' back. “Felt good?” 

“Yes, that – _yes_. Again.” 

Derek pushes his fingers forward, but he doesn't have to search for very long. He gently nudges up against it two times in perfect tandem, as Stiles pants and hisses into Derek's ear. Derek goes for it for another few seconds, until Stiles is leaking pre-come all over himself and shuddering against Derek's skin, before pulling back to gently add in a final finger. Stiles huffs, whines a little. 

“I have to make sure you're as open as possible,” Derek tells him, pressing his lips to the part of Stiles' face he can reach. 

“Because you're _so big_ , right?” Stiles snickers, and it's interesting to hear him be so snarky and sarcastic, when ten seconds ago he sounded pretty close to begging. 

“Yes, Stiles,” he rolls his eyes and stretches his fingers out as wide as he can inside of Stiles, met with a whimper from Stiles himself. “I'm big.” 

“I can take it,” he starts leaning forwards like he's trying to get away from Derek's fingers, and Derek pauses. “Come on, you've been at it for, like, _minutes_ -” which is a pretty average fingering time, though Stiles says it like it's so ridiculous, “I want you to fuck me.” 

Derek has to take a second to compose himself. The sound of Stiles' voice, that raspy and desperate, accentuated by puffs of breath while Derek literally has his fingers jammed up inside of him, saying _that_ – Derek just has to take a second. He leans his neck back, clears his throat, and threatens himself in his own head to not lose it right now. The urge to grab Stiles by his hips, flip him over, and pound into him is almost too hard for him to keep at bay. 

As it is, he manages to gently pull his fingers out, much to Stiles' delight, and drop his hands down to his sides where he can fist his fingers into the sheets. A part of him almost wishes that he had rope or handcuffs somewhere, that he was actually into that kind of a thing, so Stiles could tie Derek up in order to keep him from touching Stiles. All he has is his own willpower and some silk sheets. “I can't -” he starts, has to pause and close his eyes for a second. “I need you to -”

“Oh,” Stiles says, like he's just remembered their conversation from earlier where he promised to be in control. “Oh, okay. That's easy. Um – I'll just...” Derek feels as Stiles pulls away from him a little, lowers himself back down into a straddling position. Then, he _really_ feels when Stiles starts pawing around behind himself, slapping his fingers against Derek's thighs a couple of times on clumsy accident before he wraps them around the head of Derek's dick. 

Derek hisses between his teeth at the feel of those long, clever fingers touching him like that – the first time someone aside from himself has touched his dick in months – and opens his eyes. He finds Stiles with a determined look on his face, craning his neck to try and look at his hand on Derek, and Derek nearly laughs. He just looks so fucking _serious_ , like this is a math problem he's trying to work through. He thinks that's something that he likes the most about Stiles, that way that he can just be so _into_ something, even if it's something trivial or simple, that he treats it like it's the most important thing in the world. 

“Line it up,” Derek tells him softly, and Stiles raises his eyes to look into his. “Line the head up with yourself.” 

Stiles nods, and tries again. He manages to bump the head of Derek's dick against one of his ass cheeks about a half dozen times, and Derek thinks about coming right then and there to end his suffering before it gets to be too much, before he finally gets it where it's meant to be. 

“Okay -” Derek breathes between his teeth, runs a hand across his forehead. Keeps himself in control. “...now just – just -” 

Without having to be told or taught how, Stiles is pushing the tip in, and then lowering himself down. He takes an inch, and braces himself with a hand against Derek's chest. Another inch, and he lets out a heavy, panting breath. “Okay,” he starts, voice tight. “You were right. It's big.” 

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose and just breathes. He has never, never in his life, bottomed in any capacity – and that includes bottoming from the top. He's never let anyone else have control over the situation, never just laid back with his hands metaphorically tied behind his back for them to call all the shots. Aside from being a werewolf, and aside from this being _Stiles_ who's on top of him right now, he's just having a difficult go of it. Just sitting there. No hands. No leverage. He's too nervous to even reach out and take Stiles' hips to help him along, too nervous that the feel of Stiles clenching around him, all that heat and tightness, will make him lose himself for a second. 

“Careful,” Derek says after a moment, in disbelief that he can actually _speak_ right now. “Careful, Stiles, don't -” but it's too late either way. Stiles apparently has grown tired with moving inch by slow inch on Derek, and has taken it upon himself to _slam_ the rest of the way down by placing both hands on Derek's shoulders and just going for it.

Derek shouts, and Stiles makes a noise crossed somewhere between a cat dying and a cat having the time of its life. Most likely, that's exactly how he feels, too. 

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” Derek snaps, breathing deeply in and out. He's completely bottomed out inside of Stiles, every inch of him taken up all warm, and he leans his neck back. He can't look at it. He just can't see what Stiles looks like on his dick. He just _can't_. “Take it nice and easy, Stiles, you'll hurt yourself if -” 

Another warning goes unheeded, because instead of carefully moving up and down, instead of sliding Derek along inside of himself all gentle and easy like Derek would have done himself if he were in control of the situation, Stiles just rips himself up, and then _pounds_ back down. It's hard enough that Derek nearly goes cross-eyed for a moment, very nearly blacks out for God's sake, and the worst part of it all is that Stiles just isn't letting up. 

After the first one, there's another, just as incapacitating. For the effort Stiles is putting into this, you'd think he were trying to literally screw Derek hard enough to somehow push him clean through the mattress. Most likely, if Stiles weren't just a weak human and Derek weren't an all-powerful werewolf, something along those lines would be happening, here. As it is, Derek remains as stock still as he physically can while Stiles goes for the gold medal in olympic dick-riding. 

He stares up at Stiles with his jaw half unhinged, and he doesn't notice the way that his claws have come out, that they're digging into the mattress and ripping stuffing out, or the way that his eyes have started to glow gold as he stares. All he can notice are the sounds Stiles is making (panting, whimpering), the way his face looks (eyes shut tight, lips parted), the way he _feels_ (tight, so fucking tight and hot and wet), and his _neck_...

Derek thinks about his neck. Fixates on it. Stiles doesn't know any better, so he keeps tossing his head back, or to the side, exposing that long column of pale, biteable flesh for Derek and his wolf to salivate over. This is exactly what Derek was worried about. The unspoken fear he didn't want to admit to Stiles because, truthfully, he didn't want to freak him out. 

Derek wants to bite him. He wants to lean forwards, and jab his teeth directly into his jugular until blood pours down his neck and his collarbones, until Derek's mark is there for every wolf to look at and see and _know_. Stiles is _his_. Stiles _belongs_ to him. Anyone who'd even think about touching him would stop short if they saw Derek's teeth marks in his skin, puckered over into a scar, because humans scar so fucking easily. 

It would be so _easy_ for Derek to scar Stiles, right now. Just a quick swipe of his claws across his neck, a quick bite, just until there was enough blood, until Derek could be _sure_...

He's leaning forwards. Stiles is oblivious, his erection bouncing up against his stomach as he rides Derek up and down, doesn't even notice that Derek is moving closer to him. If he's noticed that Derek's eyes are glowing, or that there's a creaking sound from Derek's claws digging into the upholstery, he must not be thinking it through very clearly. He must not realize. 

“Stiles,” Derek snarls, _snarls_ , and the human doesn't even flinch. He opens his eyes, looks directly into Derek's, doesn't look at all petrified to see them glowing back at him, and keeps going. Keeps pushing Derek to the absolute fucking edge of his control, keeps ignoring the way that Derek inches closer and closer, leaning forwards and letting his canines drop. “ _Mine_.” 

Stiles, too fucked open to know better, just nods. Like _yes_. _Yes, yours. All yours. Have me, mate me, claim me, bite me, please, please -_

Derek nearly does. He comes inches away from Stiles' bared throat, nearly jabs a tooth into a mole waiting there on pare flesh, almost goes too fucking far. One wrong move, with a human, and you could tear their throat out. Derek has heard the stories. It's just that, right now, his wolf has convinced itself that it knows what it's doing. That it's in complete and total control of the situation and Stiles will be fine, he's fine, he's so weak and fragile and human and small, but I'll protect him, he's _fine_. 

One second, Derek is opening his mouth, about to free his hand from the mattress to wrap it around the other side of Stiles' throat to hold him down and steady, because he'll try to get away and wolf-Derek doesn't see the _problem_ with this, and the next, he's freezing solidly in place at the sound of Stiles' voice.

Stiles says, “Derek,” all breathy and high and desperate, and puts his hand on Derek's chest, and Derek goes still. “Derek, I – I need you to touch me.” 

Derek swallows. For a second, he's stuck frozen with his teeth dropped and his eyes glowing, in near disbelief at what he almost just did, and then he blinks. He retracts his teeth, dims his eyes, looks at Stiles clearly to find the human just as blissfully oblivious as he was to start with. He doesn't know what just almost happened. Or, he just doesn't care. Derek doesn't know which makes him feel worse. 

“Please,” he whines, and Derek shivers. “Please, I know you can – without hurting me. I know you can. _Please_.” 

And, Derek – he can't ever say _no_ to Stiles. Even though some part of his brain knows it's not a good idea, even though he very nearly just lost his fucking mind to try and claim Stiles without Stiles ever giving his okay on that, he just can't say no to Stiles. Not like this. Not when he's _begging_ like that. 

Slowly, Derek pulls his hand up out of the mattress. His claws come out with some puffs of fabric stuck to them, and he stares for a second. Glares, really, until he manages to get the claws to go the fuck away, retract back into his hand so he looks normal again, so there's nothing there to hurt Stiles. Nothing but Derek's skin. 

Stiles nods his head fervently. “Please.” 

Without pausing to think about it any more, Derek reaches forwards and wraps his fingers around Stiles, as gentle as if he were touching _glass_ , and strokes. Stiles' reaction of whining Derek's name and tossing his head back is almost enough for Derek to lose his cool again, but he growls at himself under his breath and keeps going. 

It's seconds more before Stiles is coming, clenching around Derek, body going entirely rigid and still as he spurts all over Derek's hand and his own stomach. _Stiles_ scent permeates everything in the entire room, dripping into fabrics and into the pores of Derek's skin, so deep Derek knows it won't go away for months after the fact, and then Stiles goes limp. He flops forwards, drops his forehead onto Derek's shoulder, and breathes. 

“Finish,” he says into Derek's ear. And Derek – that's not a fucking problem for him. 

Without touching Stiles, without getting his hands anywhere near Stiles' skin, he moves his hips up to fuck up into him, to get those last few thrusts that he needs to finish and come and get it done with, until he's right at the edge. Stiles kisses the side of his face, murmurs _that's good_ into his ear like he's praising him, and that just about does it. 

He comes so hard he sees stars – and the second it's done, the second his mind is back online and he's out of Stiles and pushing the human off of him onto the other side of the bed, he's nearly punching his fist through the wall. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses, sitting up so he can drop his head into his hands. “ _Fuck_.” 

Stiles rustles around. Derek hears him sitting up, and then feels those soft fingers touching his back for only a millisecond before Derek is pulling violently away and shaking his head. 

“I almost -” he can't say it out loud. He tries again. “I almost – I almost – I could have -”

“Shh,” Stiles' voice is so close, _so close_ , he's right there for Derek to touch. “You didn't, though. You didn't.” 

“ _Almost_.” Derek moans again. 

“No. Not even close, Derek. You couldn't have done it, and you know that. You could never do that.” 

Derek doesn't know. He isn't sure. The lines between himself and the wolf have always been blurred, but one thing that would be true for the both of them would be that the wolf would never deliberately try to hurt Stiles, and neither would Derek. But the other thing about the wolf is that it _wants_ , animalistically, all the time. It doesn't have boundaries. Derek and his wolf both understand that Stiles is weak, but that to the wolf does not translate as _so do not bite, human can't take it_ – it translates as _must mark to protect from others, must make mine_. 

His wolf could do that. His wolf would without hesitating snap its teeth into Stiles' neck, hold him down even if he cried and begged for him to stop, just to get its mark on his neck. If the wolf ran out unchecked, and if Derek hadn't spent his entire life reigning it in, it would. 

But then, maybe Stiles is right. _Derek_ could never do that. Maybe that's why Stiles said his name, like that, right when he was about to bite. To remind him that he is _Derek_ , and that Derek wouldn't do that. 

He lifts his head, and meets Stiles' eyes. 

There's no fear, there. No doubt. Just Stiles. Wide amber eyes, a small smile on his face, leaning close like he wants to kiss Derek on the lips, even in spite of what just happened. “Stiles.” It's all he can think to say. 

“Hey,” Stiles says, and reaches his hand out again. He puts his fingers on Derek's back and strokes them up and down soothingly. “You went a little wolf on me. It's not a big deal. You're a wolf. It happens.” 

“I _told_ you, that if I started to lose control, to -”

“I know you better than you know yourself, obviously,” Stiles scoffs, cutting him off and smiling. “You wouldn't have done that to me if I threatened to shoot you with wolfsbane if you didn't. I knew that.” 

Derek gives him a look. “How could you have -”

“I just knew. I'm not so stupid, you know?” 

No. Stiles isn't stupid. Stiles is smarter than anyone will likely ever give him credit for. The surge of affection Derek feels for him right now, after being so close to him and touching him like that, after Stiles pulled him from the edge of losing his mind so fucking effortlessly with nothing more than his voice, is nearly strong enough to knock him over. Derek just - he really just truly and honestly - loves him. 

Derek loves Stiles. Genuinely. To realize this now, _now_ , tonight, when in under twenty-four hours Stiles will be gone...

In some ways, Derek wishes he'd never realized it. It burns too much to look at him, knowing that tomorrow night, he'll look over and find himself alone. The selfish part of him wishes he'd never noticed it. In other ways, though, it's just nice. A part of him has probably known for weeks how he really feels about Stiles, and now that it's out there on the surface, free from the confines of Derek's subconscious, Derek feels _better_.

Here with Stiles, he just feels better than he ever has before in his entire life. It's safe. Stiles is _there_ , and warm, and sidles his body right up against Derek's like he just belongs there - and Derek can't think of any reason, at this moment, why he should be worrying about anything. 

"I wasn't worried," Stiles assures him with a smile as they both lie down and get comfortable. "You don't scare me, Derek. You never could." 

It's not enough, of course it isn't, but Derek doesn't want to think about the number of things that he'll never get to do with Stiles, for Stiles, doesn't want to think about endings at all. He just curls closer to him and inhales his scent, committing it to every last cell of his memory in the same way his own name is embedded there. 

It's not until after, when Stiles is nearly half asleep and his breath is just starting to even out, that reality comes crashing back down on the both of them.

Stiles turns over, presses one hand against Derek's neck in a gentle caress, and asks quietly, “what's your mother going to do? When she finds out I'm gone?” 

Derek doesn't answer right away. He lies back and stares at the ceiling – because, of course, he's thought about this. It's not the very first thing he considered when he started thinking about sending Stiles home, but it was one of the first things. How could he not think about it? It's probably the worst part of the entire situation. Dealing with his mother in the aftermath. 

Directly going against her orders, and beyond that, foiling her entire plan. Shipping Stiles back where she can't reach him to control him any longer. It'll make her insane. 

Truthfully, Derek doesn't know what his mother would do to him. Even more honestly, he doesn't plan on finding out. He has a couple dozen million dollars stashed away in his own bank accounts, away from where Talia could possibly get to them, so it wouldn't be too hard to run off somewhere, take his money, hide until she wasn't so fucking angry anymore before coming back with his tail between his legs. At a certain point, she'd calm down. Hopefully. 

Though, she _does_ have the power to repossess his car. Which would suck. 

“Don't worry about that,” Derek tells Stiles now, leaning down to scent at his hair. “She's my problem.” 

It's quiet again only for ten seconds. Derek kind of figured that Stiles wouldn't be able to sleep tonight, that he'd be too pent up and nervous and anxious about the day he has tomorrow to just shut off and go to sleep, so it's not surprising when Stiles' voice starts up again. What's surprising is what he says. 

“Do you believe in alternate universes?” 

Derek blinks at the ceiling. “ _What_? Did you just say?” 

“Alternate universes. Like, _parallel_.” 

Silence. He sits up, grumbles, and flicks on the bed side light on his nightstand, before rounding on Stiles with a confused glare. The time for sleep has long passed, if Stiles is sitting there shoving Derek into an episode the Twilight Zone. “ _Where_ did you read about the multiverse theory?” 

“I read more than you think,” Stiles says seriously, sitting up himself and pulling the covers tight around his hips. “Like, there's some universe out there, somewhere -”

“It's a theory.” 

“...where Harry Potter is, like, reality. Right?” 

“Hypothetically,” Derek leans back and glares at his ceiling. He rues the day that he let Stiles into his library, he really, really does. 

“I think – or I feel like I _know_ \- there's some place out there, I really think so, where you and I could have been together. Where – where we weren't so fucking jaded from the beginning.” 

Derek looks back down to take in the sight of Stiles; and he looks so fucking intense, like this is the most important thing he could ever have to say, that he's been thinking about this, churning it around in his mind again and again, going over all the details _obsessively_ like he does. Derek feels like laughing, he honestly does, but he can't do this with Stiles looking at him like that. So he just swallows, and says nothing. 

“In some alternate universe,” he holds his hands out parallel to one another, turns them over so his palms are out, and lifts one higher than the other, “I'm not a human, and you're not a wolf. Or, maybe you are, and I am. Or I'm human, but it doesn't – matter.” 

“Okay,” Derek says slowly. “But you know, the multiverse theory mostly talks about shit like...what if there's a universe out there where the sky is the ground and the ground is the sky, not just two random guys who -”

“There's _infinite_ possibilities, Derek,” Stiles gets defensive, narrowing his eyes. “For every one person and every decision that one person makes, there are a thousand different universes that -”

Derek slaps a hand over his eyes. He can't do this shit this late at night. “The _point_ , Stiles.” 

“The point is, there could be a place out there! Where we could just, you know. Be. Exist on the same plane, but be completely different than we are here and yet -” he curls his fingers into his palm, staring at them as they move, “we just _know_. We know each other. Instead, though, we're here,” his other palm lifts up higher than the other, and he frowns at it. “Here, everything's all fucked up. And you can't – we can't be together. And I have to leave.” 

Derek stares at Stiles' palm and can't believe he's getting sucked into this – Stiles has just been reading too many fantasies, evidently - but his throat is tightening up with emotion, like he might cry – which is ridiculous for him. Absolutely ridiculous. 

“I'm sad,” Stiles says resolutely. “I think you are, too.” 

Derek swallows. “I'm happy you're going back to where you belong.” 

They meet eyes, and Stiles gives him a smile that doesn't reach anywhere else but his mouth. “That's not what I meant. That's not the point – my point is that maybe it's okay. Maybe we shouldn't be sad because there's someplace else out there,” he waves his hand in the air mystically, and Derek shakes his head in disbelief, “where you and I are together. Maybe that's enough.” 

Oh, it's not. It's not. Even if Derek believed this ratatat for even half a second, it wouldn't be enough. Not for a moment would a theoretical version of the two of them being happy, either in an alternate universe or across the country or in another continent altogether, make him feel better about all of this. If anything, it would make him jealous of alternate-him. It would make him want to run away, find himself, wherever he is. Become _that_ Derek, instead of this one. 

Even in theory, even as a completely different version of himself, he'd still be selfish, like that. 

He doesn't say any of that, though. He can't vocalize it. “Maybe,” he says lowly, instead. “Maybe.” 

Stiles looks like he knows what Derek is thinking. He looks like he knows that Derek doesn't believe it, not a word, and that he's not feeling better about any of it. But, he doesn't make a comment. He just leans forward, and, soft as ever, kisses Derek, leaves his finger tips lingering along the skin of Derek's neck.

“I'm going to miss you,” he promises, swears, like an oath. He looks up into Derek's eyes, and shakes his head. “But you know I have to go.”

\----

The plan was to take Scott's car. First of all, because it's bigger, and second of all because Derek has always kind of suspected that his mother tracks his car somehow. It wouldn't surprise him at all if he ever found out that she's been using a GPS homing device on him for all this time – not in the least. It would definitely explain her bizarre tendency to always manage to show up whenever he was doing something he shouldn't have been.

She's going to find out what he's doing either way, eventually. Of course. When Stiles stops existing underneath her thumb. But it'd be best if she didn't know it at a point in time when she could try to stop him. She would. In the worst possible way. 

Once Stiles is actually back inside his sanctuary, the one that is on the border between California and Oregon as Derek had suspected, Talia won't be able to take him out. That much is clear – once the Argent trade stopped, all trades stopped. There's no getting in and no getting out, except for in extraordinary circumstances. The group is kind of banking on this being an _extraordinary circumstance_. 

Derek won't be able to get him out once he's in, either. It'll be a small miracle if whatever guards they have posted up there even let him set food inside. Which was the plan – just drop Stiles off and hope for the best. It didn't turn out that way in the end. But that was the plan. 

On the drive, Derek and Stiles play cardgames to pass the time, like a real road trip, and it must be lightyears different than the trip that Stiles had to take to get out of human territory and into wolf; the drive he was forced to take, anyway. Allison and Scott remain relatively silent up front – most likely, they can sense that it's important to give all the time that Stiles and Derek have left with one another entirely to them, uninterrupted. 

It's nice, in some ways. Stiles has fun learning the games and it at least takes his mind off of things for minutes at a time, until he gets that closed off expression on his face again and turns to stare out the window, lost in his own thoughts. 

In other ways, it's not so nice. It hurts for Derek to sit there listening to Stiles' voice, his laugh, smelling him, brushing his fingers up against Stiles' skin, knowing that it's all going to be gone in a matter of hours. Bittersweet, Derek guesses is the word for that. Most goodbyes tend to be that way. 

About six hours into the drive, their twelfth game of go-fish (the only game Stiles hasn't gotten annoyed with so far), Scott starts slowing down to a crawl quickly, knocking their deck of cards down and scattering them all around their feet. Stiles hisses a curse and starts picking them up, but stops when he looks up and sees what's up ahead. “You didn't tell me about this,” Scott murmurs to Allison, who looks just as the confused as the rest of them. 

Derek looks out the window – he's never drifted this far out of wolf-limits. Most wolves don't; why would they? There's nothing out there. So they say. 

So it's a little bit startling to look up and see a huge, ominous looking sign that reads _LEAVING WOLF TERRITORY_ in huge red letters on a faded old sign – behind it, as far as the eye can see, is a wall. Maybe eleven or twelve feet high with buzzing electrical wires coiled around the very top – Derek thinks about all the birds that have probably met their bitter end by trying to perch themselves up there. 

In front of the gate that stretches across the road, a handful of weres lazily wielding guns loaded with wolfsbane bullets and dressed all in black like they're the fucking FBI are milling around, smoking cigarettes and laughing.

“Because I didn't know,” Allison says back, and it isn't a lie. How would she know? Derek has never seen anything like this in his life, nothing like it, because there's not much security to be seen around the wolves. Not like this. Stiles, on the other hand, just blinks at the sight of the walls and weres and all the guns placidly, like this scene out of a dystopian novel is old hat to him by now. 

Once Scott is stopped ten or so feet from the gate, one of the weres is right there in his window, knocking on it with her knuckles and saying, “open up.” Scott does, with an anxious look at Derek through the rear view mirror. 

The guard sticks her head in and gazes through her sunglasses at the scene. First Scott, then Allison, then Derek, and then Stiles. She lingers on him a moment or so, like she recognizes him and isn't at all pleased with the sight, and sighs through her nose. As if she knows exactly what's going on here. “You guys have a pass?” 

More anxious looks exchanged among the group. “A pass?” Scott sounds dubious. 

She slings her gun onto her shoulder and sighs again. “A pass. A ticket. To go on through.” 

“I wasn't aware we -”

“You weren't aware you needed permission to get out of wolf country onto human grounds? Right.”

There's a second, maybe two, where it looks like Scott is about to surrender and back his car up, go back to civilization, which does seem a more viable choice than getting shot at with wolfsbane by trying to slam their way through the gate with the car. 

But, Derek can't give up that easy. Not on Stiles, and not when they're so close.

He makes a decision that he knows is either very, very stupid, or very, very smart. Either way, it's really the only thing they've got at the moment. 

He rolls his own window down and grins at the guard once she turns her on eyes on him. “Hi,” he says, trying to turn on the charm, “I'm Derek Hale.” 

She frowns, pulling her neck back like she hadn't looked hard enough at him the first time she looked. “That you are.” She points into the car behind Derek's head, towards where Stiles is sitting and fidgeting his fingers nervously. “Isn't that -”

“My fiancee. Yes. Actually, Talia Hale sent us in.” 

She stares at him. Through her sunglasses, he can't quite make out her eyes, but from the lift of her eyebrows, he can guess they might go huge for a second. “Talia,” she repeats tonelessly. The name does tend to carry a lot of weight. Derek is hoping it carries enough in this particular situation. 

“Yeah. My mother. And, typically, she doesn't need a pass to go anywhere. Right?” 

Her jaw tightens her mouth into a frown, and she looks like she's been backed into a corner. Denying Talia Hale of anything she wants, short of actual illegal activity, isn't just something that Derek tries to avoid himself like the plague, but something that most wolves in general tend to try to avoid. Especially in government work. It's pivotal to avoid getting on her bad side if you really want to make it anywhere. 

“What's your business?” She asks, voice hesitant but resigned. 

Derek jerks his head back towards Stiles. “I'm taking him to see his father.” 

There's a pause, and then she's letting out a short laugh. “To the sanctuary? You're messing with me.” When the only response she gets to this as she scans everyone else's faces is blank looks and shrugs, she clears her throat awkwardly. “Shit. Er -” incredulous laugh, “okay? They don't typically just let wolves waltz in there, you know -”

“They'll let him in,” Derek counters. “He's from there. Right?” 

“I have no idea what they let in or out of that place,” she says in a hard to read voice, flipping her sunglasses up on top of her head so she can rub at her eyes for a second in consternation. “Look – you guys are asking a lot of me. I can't give the go ahead to send civilians into that place. Not without the proper procedure.” 

She keeps calling it _that place_. Not in a nice way, either. She says it like she's heard stories, and a lot of them, bad stories. Old wives tales, maybe, something to keep the kids on the outskirts of wolf country from trying to wander outside to see the humans. But she doesn't look like she thinks they're just stories. 

“We're just -” he can't say dropping him off, because he's not supposed to send humans back to the sanctuary to stay once they're out, “...stopping by.” 

She stares at him for another moment, and then looks back in at Stiles, her lips a grim line. Derek doesn't know what she sees in him, maybe some level of desperation, because she huffs out her thousandth sigh and raises her hand up behind her to the rest of the guards in a signal Derek doesn't understand. Another guard puts out his cigarette and sluggishly moves over to a control box – presumably to open up the gate for them. 

“You be careful in that place, Mr. Hale,” she fixes him with a grim look, all serious and cold, “out in wolf country, humans might be docile little lapdogs, but up there -” she glances towards the mountains, frowns, “...just be careful.” 

Derek rolls his window up. 

“How could you not have known about that?” Scott demands as they sit there waiting for the gate to open. 

“My dad said there was a checkpoint,” Allison confesses quietly, staring up at the wall with a shake of her head. “This isn't exactly what I was imagining.”

_Checkpoint_ makes Derek think about tolls on the highway – slip seventy-five cents in, slide on by. No big deal, continue on with your day. This isn't a fucking checkpoint. This is _stop. Turn around. Go back._ Derek would guess they don't let very many people through, not anymore – and even when they did, it was Argents near exclusively. 

On the one hand, it's probably a good thing security is so tight on the borders between what wolves own and what they've allotted to the humans – it'll keep the curious and often times malicious wolves out. 

But, also, it keeps the humans in. Trapped. 

The gates open, the guards get out of the road, and Scott crawls forwards. 

On the other side, the forest is denser, like it's not kept the same way that the national forests are by the wolves on their side of the tracks. The trees are all more packed together, the road itself is flimsier and covered in pot holes that make Derek clack his teeth together to keep them from rattling. It looks like nothing, nothing at all to Derek except the woods, but Stiles grins as soon as he sees all the trees lined up like that. He rolls his own window down, sticks his head out, and inhales – the same way one might huff paint. After a moment, he turns around, smiles, and says, “smells like home.” 

For maybe fifteen minutes, nothing changes. Trees, trees, trees, on a windy dirt road, foliage, forest creatures, for miles with no end in sight. Stiles spends most of his time jiggling his leg up and down, chewing on his nails and glaring out the window. Every time Derek tries to talk to him, he gets a one word response muttered back around a fingernail – clearly, Stiles is at that stage of anxiety where a conversation is just out of the question. 

Derek wonders what he's thinking about – most likely his mind is whirring with all the same questions and fears he had spoken out loud to Derek in the past week. Like if he'll still fit in with the other humans, if his dad will still like him or recognize him, if he's made the right decision. 

As for Derek, he's convinced himself that he's made the right choice. Although, maybe that's just so he'll be able to sleep at night, all alone in his big empty bed. 

Abruptly, the trees clear, and there's a man in the road. 

Scott slams down on the brakes with a curse, but the guy doesn't even fucking flinch. He just stands there, waiting, like he has been waiting ever since he heard the first branch crack underneath a tire, however far off humans can actually hear something like that. Once Derek blinks enough times, he sees that he's not just standing randomly in the middle of the road – he's standing between the road and a wall so deeply embedded into the thick forest that if you don't look hard enough, you might just miss it. 

It's the same color and general size as the one from the checkpoint, if maybe slightly more worn down, covered with vines and moss. How far this particular wall stretches, Derek can't be sure, because it vanishes off into the surrounding trees, seeming to round at one point and disappear around a corner. Circular, then. A cage. 

This man doesn't look at all happy to see them. He cocks his gun deliberately to threaten and warn, and Derek can smell the wolfsbane from here. It's so potent, freshly cut maybe, woven into his clothes, that it makes Derek's eyes water. 

“We don't deal with Argents anymore.” He doesn't step closer or raise his voice. He knows he's talking to weres. 

“We're not Argents,” Scott yells back after rolling his window down. He opens his mouth to continue, and then looks back at Allison with a sigh. “Well – one of us might be – but -”

“We're not here on Argent business,” Allison shouts over Scott's shoulder. “We're here to return a human to his family.” 

The man doesn't move for a second, except to adjust the grip on his rifle. “You think I haven't heard that before?” 

How many times have humans unwittingly trusted wolves that seemed to have good intentions, only to be fucked over in the worst possible way, in the end? The possibilities and scenarios and end results are astronomical, most likely, and Derek doesn't want to take the time to really consider it. 

“Come see for yourself!” 

Like he's being challenged, he smirks, and starts walking forward without even a pause. As he moves, he starts talking in a low voice. “I have enough wolfsbane on me right now to kill all three of you, and then some. Try anything stupid, and I'll start with the girl.” 

The threat isn't empty. Not at all. Scott slams his hand down on the locks and they all click at once, before he stretches his arm out over Allison's middle protectively. For her part, Allison just flicks a lock of hair over her shoulder and opens up the glove compartment, where a knife is conveniently resting on top of a pile of napkins. She doesn't touch it. Just leaves it in the open where she could, should the need arise. 

As the human steps closer, he says, “let me see them, then.” 

Derek doesn't want to, doesn't like the smell of this at all – something is very clearly off with all of this, something is fucking wrong here, has been wrong since the checkpoint and that guard-girl saying _that place_ with her ominous warning. He doesn't get a chance to voice any of this, because Stiles takes the initiative himself and rolls his own window down. 

Within milliseconds, the man is staring in at him. He's got green eyes, calculating, face mucked up with dirt either because he's just dirty or because he was going for a camouflage thing. Other than that, he's wearing rags for clothes that are so dark they must be filthy, and even his gun looks about seconds away from breaking underneath his hands. 

There's a moment, maybe two, of him staring somewhat suspiciously at Stiles, eyebrows furrowed down together; he can tell Stiles is a human just from the size of him, especially when compared to Derek, but everything else about him is up in the air. The silence stretches long enough that Derek really thinks he's about to send him away, and Talia's name carries no fucking weight with this man, so there's nothing Derek could do about it. 

Then his eyes widen. He steps closer, close enough to put his hand on the door on top of the open window, dirty fingers reaching inside of the car, and he says, “Stiles?” 

Stiles, startled beyond all belief most likely, rears his neck back and looks to Derek for support – unfortunately, he's not very much help at the moment. He's just as surprised as Stiles is. 

“Stiles? Is that – you?” 

It takes a second, but eventually, Stiles clears his throat and rasps out, “yeah?” 

“Holy. Fucking. _God_.” 

And Stiles was worried no one was going to recognize him. Derek leans into Stiles, close enough to murmur, “do you recognize him?” into his ear. Stiles blinks. 

“No, I – maybe? I don't -”

“Holy shit.” He drops his gun down to his side and shakes his head, looking at Stiles as if he's just found the holy grail. “It's me, Stiles. It's Jordan Parrish. I was a few years up from you – you don't remember?” 

Stiles shakes his head, slowly. He smells moderately uncomfortable, frightened, even. 

“Shit. I have to – I can't believe this is -” he's ripping a walkie talkie that looks ancient enough to be in a cheesy nineties action movie, and then he's talking into it, not wasting a second. “Gate to base do you copy?” In the following silence, all he does is stare at Stiles – and then, a muffled, scratchy response that not even Derek can make out rings out in the forest. “I need the gate open. _Now_. All the way. “ 

Another muffled response. “Wolves, car, yes, but – there's – it's not Argents. Shit. _Shit_. Open the fucking gate, and get Stilinski. Tell him his son is coming home.” 

“ _What_?” That, Derek understands. 

“Tell him Stiles is back.” 

 

Derek used to spend a lot of time imagining what the sanctuaries looked like Like any other kid who was told of a place that they weren't allowed to ever see or visit, he had no other choice but to imagine it.

There had been a few movies (very, very few, because human storylines never interested the wolves much unless they were slaves or amusing caricatures for the wolves to snicker at) that showed them as being more less exactly like the wolf world – buildings, shops, sidewalks, and roads. Just on a smaller, somewhat poorer scale. Though, even as a child, Derek knew that couldn't be true. It had to be radically fucking different, a complete overhaul – like one of those alternate universes Stiles was talking about before. He always thought, _jungle_ , where they'd all be one with the wildlife, friends with the monkeys and all. When you grow up being told humans are animals, this makes sense. 

When he met Stiles, he guesses that his imagination changed. Having an actual person that he cared about who came from one of them, he sort of had to think in terms of the best possible case scenario. It couldn't be like what Derek knew, so it had to be poor, and it had to be somewhat rundown, but it had to be lively. Out in the forests, with the trees and squirrels and plenty of game and nuts and whatever else is out there to live off the land. Jesus – just something. Something that Derek could hold onto, something that would make him believe a better life for Stiles would be waiting for him on the other side. _Something_.

Not this. 

The second that gate starts opening, Derek hears voices. Before, it had been deadly quiet, like they were all just waiting on the other side holding their breath, listening intently on the conversation through the concrete walls. Derek hadn't even thought to listen for anything on the other side of the wall – if he had, he might've heard whispering. Breathing. Three dozen heartbeats. 

Now, there's yelling. A lot of it. The sounds of a struggle, several struggles, flesh hitting flesh like someone's starting a fucking fight or a brawl in there, and Parrish starts firing his gun up in the air. Once, twice, three times, shouting _back up, back up, back away, if you even touch that car I will fucking shoot you where you stand!_

The voices get louder, more agitated, and then the gate is open all the way – spilling light out onto the hood of the car – and Parrish is in front of it with his gun, pointing it at the crowd forming. Derek doesn't doubt for a second he'd fire it. Not a fucking second. 

Scott inches inside the – whatever the hell you'd call this place – and as soon as they're far enough inside that Derek can get a good look at what's actually inside the walls, he wants to tell Scott to turn back. 

It's like something out of a Stephen King novel, for lack of a better comparison. Derek's never seen anything like this, not even in movies, so he hasn't got much in the way of similes, here. There are dozens of people, all of them in various stages of grime and disarray, tattered clothes, just hovering around. Some of them have rocks or big sticks clenched in their hands, glaring like they're seriously considering lobbing them with full force at the car – one of them has a fucking torch in their hand. Now Derek gets why Parrish fired his gun off, why he's walking in front of the car holding his weapon cocked and ready to go, pointing it at kids that can't be older than fourteen like he'd honestly pull the trigger on them. 

This wasn't a group of humans excited or interested in seeing that gate open up for the first time, maybe since the Argents came through. Not at all. This was one step away from becoming an honest to God mob scene. 

Derek has it on good authority that if it came down to it, Allison, Scott and Derek could take on fifty humans as easily as taking on a pack of buzzing bees with a can of repellent. That's not the problem. The problem would be that Derek can't imagine himself having to physically hurt or actually kill some of these people; half of them are children. But they act like they're not. Not the way they're looking at Derek, not the way they're clenching weapons in their hands tight enough that Derek can smell blood from where he sits. 

And the people – that's just the fucking start of it. The inside of the place itself is like nothing Derek's ever seen before, not even in the worst, most run down slums in wolf country. There are no buildings. Not one. As far as the eye can see, the best thing these people have for shelter are crude little huts built out of clay stones or sticks or – whatever else they could find, he guesses. Roofs made out of hay or cardboard boxes or tin.

There's no sidewalks. There doesn't even seem to be much of a road, really, it's so overgrown with weeds and ugly grass that it's more like driving through a very narrow unkempt yard. As they drive down it, people follow. With their eyes, or with their bodies, and Derek can make out a word here or there. Like _Argents_ , and _wolves_ , and _out_. They're all looking into the car with either disdain, or terror, or some horrible mix of both, pulling children behind their backs like they anticipate having them taken away. 

The most notable thing in the entire scene that Derek can make out so far, beyond the huts and the people, is a truck bed that they've fashioned into a bonfire. It's burning right now, as a matter of fact, huge flames spilling out around the metal, a pile of sticks that don't look like they'd burn for longer than a minute each stacked up beside it. Derek wonders if that's the only way they've found to keep warm. 

There's nothing, aside from that. Huts, and people, and fire, and the walls. Nothing else. There are hardly any trees left, after chopping them all down for firewood throughout the winter, most likely, there's no water anywhere in sight, nothing. 

Scott and Derek make eye contact in the rear view mirror again, this time almost desperately, and in Scott's eyes, Derek can tell that they're both thinking the exact same thing. 

_We can't leave Stiles here_. That's it. Case closed. No discussion. Derek doesn't care if Stiles throws the tantrum of the century. There's no. Fucking. Way. 

“This isn't,” Stiles starts in a quiet voice, almost to himself, “this isn't how I remember it. This is – I don't -” he looks half petrified. He's taken his seatbelt off and pulled himself onto his knees to get a better look out his window, glaring around at everything – all the _nothing_ that spans as far as the walls do – and he looks like he doesn't quite get it. Like what he's seeing isn't computing in his mind. “This isn't it. This is wrong.” 

If this place was really any better than it is now when Stiles lived here (and, really, anything would be better than this), then what Stiles must be looking at right now are ruins. Fragments and charred up remains of what used to be. 

An entire childhood smashed to bits right before his eyes. Again. 

Derek is well on his way to regretting this entire fucking thing, ruing the fucking day he was born almost, when he spots a man coming down the road towards their car. Parrish waves at him with his gun, before pointing it at a teenager who's getting too close to the car. 

Stiles spots him as well, and then his window is sliding open. 

“Stiles, _shut that_ ,” Derek warns. He gets a vision of one of those kids lobbing a fucking rock and cracking Stiles' head open – but Stiles isn't listening. 

“Stop,” he says, leaning back into his seat, sliding his knees out from underneath him to get his feet on the ground. “Stop the car. Stop, _stop_ – that's – that's my dad.” 

Derek looks up at the man coming towards them again, and cocks his head to the side. It's hard to tell from a distance, but that man looks much different from the man in the picture that Stiles had shown him. Older by another twenty years, at least. 

“That's my dad, that's my dad, that's – _stop_!” Scott slams on the brakes at Stiles' shrill voice, and Derek can see it coming a mile away. 

He's reaching across the car seat to grab at Stiles' arm, to pull him back against him and not allow him under any circumstances to exit the fucking vehicle, but Stiles is literally climbing through the fucking window and scattering out onto the dirt before Derek can get a good grip on him. 

“Stiles!” He hisses, but too late either way. Stiles is already off like a shot, running towards the man he thinks is his father, nearly tripping a couple of times in his haste. A handful of his peers actually try to fucking follow him, to hurt him or kill him or do what to him Derek isn't sure, but Parrish starts shouting at them, waving his gun again, and they back off quickly enough. 

“Dad, it's me!” Stiles is calling as he runs, as Scott is putting the car in park and unbuckling his seatbelt, as Derek is opening up his own door to chase after the human. But, clearly, his father recognizes him just like Stiles was afraid he wouldn't, because once they're within close enough range of each other, he's pulling Stiles into a hug so tight that if Derek ever tried to hug him like that, it would crush him. 

Derek gets his feet on the ground, slams his door shut, turns. 

The first thing he sees is a girl holding a slingshot, aiming a rock directly at his head. Her hands are shaking as she takes in the sight of him, her chin wobbling like she's about to start crying. Derek wonders how many wolves she's met in her life.

How many of those wolves have threatened her, hurt her, those around her, how many have stolen humans right in front of her and made off like bandits. She's well within her rights to smack that rock into Derek's head, and more. She should shove wolfsbane down his throat and leave him to bleed out, that way. Every wolf she encounters, she should do the fucking same. 

As it is, Derek just looks at her for a second, doesn't even know what to say, before he turns and walks away. Humans back up and away from him, from Scott and Allison as well, as they walk – standing a head taller than every single person in sight. No one tries to attack them or hurt them, even though they all clearly want to. Maybe they know better, by now. 

Jordan huffs. “I guess I'm manning the fucking car, then?” It's not spoken out loud, but Derek can read between the lines easily enough - if left to their own devices with that car, Derek can only fucking imagine what these humans would do with it. Turn it into another bonfire, most likely. 

They walk down the road, towards where Stiles and his father are having their reunion, and Derek tries not to listen in to give them privacy – but it's way more interesting than listening to what the other humans around him are whispering. 

“...I thought you'd forget about me,” Stiles is huffing into his dad's shoulder, still clutching on to him in a vice. “I thought – all this time – and -”

“Never, Stiles,” his dad squeezes him back even harder, “I never forgot, not one day. I've missed you so much – I've been trying to look for you, every day.” 

Derek can't imagine how. The ties they have to the outside world in here must be sparse. If any. 

Seconds pass, with Derek and the other two weres standing back politely, looking away and pretending to be fascinated with the architecture of the closest mud hut, before Stiles finally pulls himself out of his father's hug and wipes at his teary eyes. “Dad, I want you to meet my friends. _Friends_ ,” he emphasizes with a bit of a press. Derek glances at the gun the man has strapped across his back, the other two guns he can smell attached at his hips – no doubt, he'd start open firing if Stiles even gave half an indication that he was frightened of them. 

Derek wonders who gets the guns in this place. Clearly, not all of them get to have firearms, if the rocks and sticks were anything to go by. Stiles' father and Parrish and maybe one or two others must be some kind of authority around here - like the police, or the guard. Every large group of people has to have a system of power, after all. Someone to keep the rest in line. Used to be the wolves around here. Now that they're left to their own devices, they must just give a gun to the first guy who's willing to learn to shoot. 

He stares at them each individually, an unreadable expression on his face, and it's hard not to think about what wolves this man has come into contact with in his lifetime. For all Derek knows, the last time he set eyes on a wolf in person, it was the one ripping his son out of his own bed in the middle of the night to throw him inside the back of a van. 

“They helped me get here. There are wolves like that out there,” he shifts his eyes to the other humans hovering a good twenty feet away, still holding their weapons suspiciously, while Jordan Parrish sits criss cross on the hood of the car, glaring at them all. “They're not all bad.”

His father looks like he believes that about as much as he believes pigs can fly, but mostly for his son's benefit, he plasters a small smile onto his face and nods. 

“This is Allison and Scott McCall,” a good judgment call on Stiles' part leaving the name Argent off the role call, “they – well. They helped me a lot. I'd be way worse off without them.” 

“It's nice to meet you,” Scott's hand twitches like he's going to hold it out, but the human in front of them doesn't even move – so Scott leaves it at his side. “We've heard a lot about you.” 

He smiles thinly at them with a short and crisp nod. He's humoring the hell out of his kid right now, nothing more, nothing less. If he had his way, their heads would be blown off by now. That much is evident. 

“And, this,” Stiles moves away from his father and walks right up to Derek, pressing up against his side pointedly, like he's making a statement, “this is my best friend.” It's the first time Derek has heard Stiles refer to him as much as anything but his name, so it's a little bit surprising to hear a title so affectionate come out of his mouth. But Derek guesses there's really no better word that Stiles could come up with for what Derek is to him. The person out in wolf country that Stiles has gotten closest to, even closer than Scott or Allison - best friend. 

As soon as the contact between them has been made, Stiles' father not so subtly starts reaching for his gun. Derek doesn't much fucking fancy getting shot with wolfsbane in any capacity, whether he'd survive or not, so he's just about to start prying Stiles off of him in both of their best interests, when Stiles finishes his sentence. “...this is Derek Hale.” 

The name is out there, and he drops his hand away from his gun. Just like that. His eyes scan over Derek once, twice, the way that Stiles is holding onto him, and he gets an odd twinkle in his eye. A genuine smile spreads across his face, and he takes a single step forward. “Hale, you said?” 

“Yes,” Stiles smiles. “Derek Hale.” 

All of the sudden, a murmur starts throughout the crowd. Quiet, at first, and then slowly growing steam as the name drifts around from person to person. _That's a Hale, what do you think he's doing here, do you think he's going to take us someplace better, do you think -_

“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Stiles' father says, and he sounds like he means it. 

Derek swallows, and feels like a fraud. For reasons unfathomable to him, he suddenly feels like he's come into this place like a wolf in sheep's clothing, like something he's not, just because of the name he carries. 

He wonders just what the Hale name means to these humans. What they've heard about it. 

Whatever it is, judging from their reactions, it's wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. 

“Sorry about the welcoming committee,” he waves his hand towards the mob of humans still milling around in small patches, muttering to each other with their arms crossed and glaring across the way at where Stiles' father has taken them all to stand away – maybe for their own good. “You can imagine we don't like wolves very much. We have negative associations. You understand.” 

Of course Derek understands. Crystal fucking clear. If he were to die out here by the hands of an angry mob of humans, it'd be really hard for him to say it wasn't in some roundabout way justified. 

“It's not usually this -” he waves his hand in the air once again, “...exciting, here.” _Exciting_ is one word for it. Although, Derek doesn't know what to think about this statement. His first impression of the sanctuary – he doesn't think he can fucking call it that anymore, not after seeing what he's seen – has been horrible. Absolutely gut wrenching. It's hard to imagine it being any other way. 

“It looks smaller to me,” Stiles says as he looks around himself, from wall to wall, hut to hut. “There are a lot less -” 

“Less people,” Stilinski finishes for him with a wry smile. “There's less people. When you were a kid, there were a good thousand of us here. You remember that?” 

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees as he scans the slowly thinning crowd while they retreat back to whatever homes or duties they have to go back to. “This isn't everyone?” 

There's a beat of silence, Allison and Scott exchanging looks with one another while Derek just stands there feeling like he's crawling out of his skin. 

Stilinski runs a hand down his face, and then does it again, and again, squinting off into the fading sunlight and pursing his lips together. He really does look much older than the picture Stiles showed Derek, way beyond his years, now, as if the stress of living as a human being in this place has aged him double what he should have otherwise. 

“A lot's changed around here since you left, Stiles.” It sounds ominous. A precursor to bad news. Probably a lot of it. “We were a thousand before – now, we're dwindled down to around a hundred.” 

“A _hundred_?” Stiles repeats, yells, more like, eyes going wide with shock. “ _What_?” 

This is a conversation Stilinski does not want to have, and that much is very, very evident. This must be a conversation that he has daily, constantly, with the rest of the humans here. Derek's not sure yet if they've all died out or all been taken or what's happening here – but it isn't good. State of emergency comes to mind. “Nevermind that. There's – you're _here_ ,” he wraps his arm around his son's shoulders, even though Stiles is very clearly still rattled by both the sight of his former home in shambles and the information he just heard. “How are you here?” 

Stiles swallows. “Derek brought me. I'm finally back home.” Though it sounds forced coming out, that word _home_. Is there really any home left here for him, anymore?

Stilinski fixes his eyes on Derek, and there are maybe a thousand unspoken words there bubbling at the surface with just one look, but all he does is clear his throat and say, “it's sure nice of you to take the time out of your day to bring my son back home to see me.” 

Stiles frowns at him for a second, before tightening his fingers around the straps of his backpack with intent. “He didn't bring me just to _see you_ , dad. He brought me here to stay.” 

Derek might have opened his mouth to refute this, might have started pointing out that there's no way in actual hell that he's leaving Stiles in this place, because he'd never be able to forgive himself or sleep at night after seeing what he has here. But then, before he gets any steam with that speech, before he even gets the first word out, Stilinski gives him a look. And that's not the look of a man who's happy to have his son back at home, not by a longshot. 

That's the same look that Scott and Derek had given each other in the rearview mirror. Fear, regret, one more decision that has to be taken back. 

As much as Derek knows that Stiles shouldn't be here, that _no one_ should, Stiles' father probably knows that ten times over. From firsthand experience of what really goes on around here. 

He squeezes his son's shoulder. Looks away. “Let's go back to my house. Talk about things. Chiefly how the hell you managed to get here in the first place.” Though his tone is cheerful, his posture and the way he looks at Stiles like he knows he's only temporary say otherwise. Stiles isn't as attuned to these things, not like wolves are, so he just smiles and starts walking down the makeshift road alongside his father. 

As they walk past rinkydink hut after hut, Derek is glad to report that the most exciting thing to happen is people glaring at them and muttering under their breaths about _monsters_. It's not so nice to be stared at like this. Derek thinks that this is what every human out in wolf territory must feel like day after terrifying day – eyes following them everywhere they move, full of hostility and ill intent. Up in front of them, Stiles and his dad start talking in quiet voices with one another, and it's clear as day that this is a conversation that they're meant to be having in private, without anyone listening. 

Derek tries his hardest not to eavesdrop out of respect, but it's hard when his name keeps being brought up again and again. Stilinski asking how Stiles wound up with Derek, Stiles hemming and hawing over the answer because not even he's really sure about that himself, a question about if Derek is kind, to which Stiles nods. 

_What is he to you? Your owner?_ Derek feels his face pale with the word, something like shame or mortification, and he looks away from their backs for a moment to glare out at the sky. Looks different out here. Smaller. 

Stiles knows good and well that Derek can hear him, that Allison and Scott can too. He pauses, nothing but the sound of his feet crunching in the gravel. _He's important to me._ A million moments and intimacies boiled down to just that. It must speak volumes loud enough for Stilinski, because he glances over his shoulder and gives Derek a quizzical look, not hostile, before turning back to his son to murmur something else in his ear. 

Scott sidles up beside Derek and leans in very close to his ear, gripping onto the fabric of Derek's shirt. It's not like Derek doesn't know exactly what he's about to say, but the words spoken out loud hit a lot harder than Derek is really prepared for. “We – can't leave him in this place,” he says, quiet enough that Stiles and his father wouldn't have any hope of hearing. “Derek. This isn't – this isn't right.” 

“I _know_ that,” Derek hisses, watching as a girl sits in her front yard playing cards with herself, “but we're _here_ , Scott.” 

“How could we have done this without doing the proper research,” he chides himself, palming his forehead, “ _why_ did we do this?” 

It's a good a question as any. Derek was just trying to do the right thing, for once in his life; the unselfish, genuinely true thing. It seems that this, as well, is just another fucking ship he's gone and wrecked. 

Allison appears on Derek's other side with a frown on her face, so that she and Scott are sandwiching him in on the road. “I did the research. I asked my father what it's really like in here.” She goes quiet for a moment, thoughtful, scanning her eyes over whatever there is to see in this place. “This is not what he described. He said it was poor and wild like this, but – these people look like they hardly eat. No.” She nods her head firmly. “It was _not_ like this before.” 

_Before_. That means before the Argents stopped coming through with their caravans. Derek had always presumed that whatever they did here, _everything_ they did here, should be stopped, for the good and wellbeing of the humans. But, apparently, now Allison is starting to believe that under the Argents' thumb, they might have faired better. Maybe in all those speeches Kate Argent makes, she's right. Maybe humans really can't survive without the wolves stepping in to help them. All this time he's spent rallying against the Argents, or any wolves, having control over human territories...

It's a shame he realizes this so late, but it comes to him like lightning - that the humans really don't _have_ any _territories_. They have designated places where wolves have penned them in to keep and screw around with how they feel, and when the wolves pull back, there's no _freedom_ there. All they really do is leave them out here, stranded and trapped, surrounded on all sides by creatures who would love nothing more than to take and destroy them, with nowhere to go. Derek should've known. 

They wind up at Stilinski's hut, which looks exactly like the rest, but perched at the end of the road only ten or so feet from the huge concrete wall. In the yard, Derek can see the stump of a tree withering away, and he wonders if that's the same tree that was in the background of Stiles' picture. From the way Stiles furrows his brow at it and lingers his eyes there for much longer than a mossy old stump deserves, Derek thinks that's a yes. 

“Not exactly how you remember it, I bet,” his father says as they trickle in through the front door. Stiles makes a short noise of assent while Derek ducks his head underneath the squat door frame – these huts were definitely not built with wolves in mind. It's the very first time Derek has ever set foot inside of a place that wasn't specifically engineered for his own kind; now, he wonders how Stiles feels surrounded by things that are just slightly too big for him. Truth be told, he's never thought about that beyond vague amusement at watching Stiles have to buy extra small everything at clothing stores. 

Inside, it's not so bad. Well. It's horrible and thickens Derek resolve to pick Stiles up and run him the Hell out of here, but not as bad as it could be. The floor is just the earth underneath their feet, decorated with a small table that looks better suited for playing cards than for eating meals at, a single rickety wooden chair, and a cupboard. A short hallway indicates two more rooms – one of those must have belonged to Stiles. 

Confirming this, Stiles walks right over to one of the doorframes and peers inside, before his entire face lights up in genuine joy and excitement for the first time since they passed through the gate. “My bed's still here!” As if this is the evidence he needed that maybe things aren't so different and terrible here now, he says this. Just a bed. 

“Yeah. I guess a part of me always thought -” he cuts off, closing his mouth and shaking his head. Stilinski always thought that his son would come back, one day – but now, for whatever reason, that's a thought he just can't finish. Not out loud. To change the direction of the conversation, he lifts his eyes back up to meet Derek's square on. Apparently, Stiles got his affinity for staring directly into the eyes of wolves even though it's ill advised to do so from his father. “I'd offer you something to eat, but – times are tough.” 

Without thinking, Derek shoots back, “do you have anything to feed Stiles?” He knows he must sound exactly like the wolves who had come in and taken Stiles away that night, and Stiles looks at him like he's just punched the man clean in his fucking face. _How could you say that_ is clearly about to come tumbling out of Stiles' mouth, but Stilinski just gives him a strange, thin smile that doesn't reach his eyes. Understanding is clear in his face, although what it is that he thinks he understands about Derek after that outburst, it isn't clear. 

“Stiles, why don't you stay in here with your friends.” He eyes Scott and Allison up and down for a moment with wariness, but he must figure that if Stiles trusts them enough to drag them into the human sanctuary, then more likely than not, they're not going to do anything to him. “Mr. Hale and I are just going to have a quick conversation.” 

Stiles looks between the two men, befuddled, anxious. He's got this look on his face like he genuinely thinks that his father is going to shoot and kill Derek with those wolfsbane guns he has on him. Which...he might be right about that. 

Before Stiles can get a word in edgewise, Stilinski is brushing past Derek out the door, and with no other options, Derek is following close behind. 

There aren't very many humans still lingering outside, but off in the distance, Derek can still make out Jordan perched on the hood of Scott's car, guarding it with that gun of his and glaring out at anyone who passes by. Most likely, he's so protective of it because the last thing he wants is a handful of wolves trapped in here with no way to get out, no car. What would a gaggle of wolves do in a sea of humans for them to pick and choose from? Derek doesn't want to know. 

The moment they're facing each other and the eye contact is made, Stiles' father is speaking, spitting the words out from between his teeth. “I should shoot you point blank between the eyes for bringing my son here like some big reunion, when I can tell you have no intentions of letting him stay.” 

It surprises Derek, both the words and the conviction behind them, but not enough to keep him quiet. “Just like I can tell _you_ have no intentions of letting him stay.” 

They stare at each other, while inside Stiles apparently spots a grasshopper and points it out to Allison like it's the most incredible thing that's ever happened – there aren't many grasshoppers out in the cities. Seconds pass. Two people who might only want the same exact thing – what would be best for Stiles in the end – but neither one sure of what exactly that might be. 

“He looks like he's been eating.” Stilinski thumbs along the gun at his hip, maybe a warning, or maybe not. “He looks healthy.” 

“No one here does.” 

It's undeniable fact, and so, like the wise man he might be, Stilinski doesn't bother trying to deny it at all. “Compared to the palaces you wolves harbor to yourselves, we must look like a joke.” 

“ _Joke_ isn't the word I'd use,” Derek says in a low voice as he trails his eyes over the short expanse of the community. “ _Horror-show_ would be more accurate.” 

Derek hears Stiles' backpack unzip like he's getting unpacked, and Derek's hands ball into fists at his sides. The longer they stand here talking, the longer Stiles thinks he's finally made it somewhere where he can be free, the worse the end result of all this is going to be. They can shoot the shit back and forth, Derek and Stiles' father, but they both know what's going to happen here before the day ends. Maybe he's just stalling. Maybe Derek is, too. 

“ _You_ brought him here.” 

“The word _sanctuary_ has a very different meaning in wolf country, Mr. Stilinski.” 

“You thought, what?” He hacks out a sarcastic laugh, shaking his head. “Waterfalls and rainbows? Even when we were better off, we were still barely scraping by with the skin of our teeth.” 

“Better off. You were _better off_ with the Argents barging in week after week? You were _better off_ with the wolves who took your son away in the first place?” 

He sets his jaw, raises his eyes to the sky – as if it causes him physical pain to admit to this. To admit that they ever had help from the likes of wolves, that they were really better, back then. “They brought us _food_. Did you see any place to get food out here on your way in, Derek?” 

“Forest animals,” he offers lamely. He thinks himself about hunting down a raccoon and eating it, foraging for edible leaves, and his face sours at the image of it in his own head. Superior predators wolves might be, and yet they buy their meat pre-packaged from supermarkets without ever once setting foot in any forest to kill for themselves, without ever having to truly hunt and find their own food. They don't even have to hunt humans - they're all out here, penned up and waiting, like just another store the wolves have built. 

“Forest animals to feed a thousand people. Right. We killed off entire populations of squirrels within the first month,” he takes a step closer, into Derek's personal space, so Derek has to tilt his chin down to look directly into the man's eyes, “and even then, there just wasn't enough.” Derek is about to ask if nine hundred fucking people have seriously died from starvation here in the past two years that the Argents have left them alone, imagines what the sight of that many people dying off the slowest way possible would look like, but luckily, Stilinski puts a stop to that quick enough. “Most people left,” he clarifies, reading the question in Derek's face. “Went off to find – anything. Something better. You and I know where they wound up.” 

Snatched up the second they hit that wall with the checkpoint and the guard-wolves with their guns. Sold off to whoever could pay enough. Derek doesn't need an imagination for that. He's seen it with his own eyes. 

Participated in it, even. 

“With this few mouths to feed, we – we get by,” he huffs out, the word _barely_ unspoken but heard all the same. “But it's just...” he clenches his fingers into the meat of his palms and sighs deeply through his nose. “I used to think that Stiles was dead. Worse still, I used to think he was better off that way.” 

And Derek – he can't hear another fucking second of this. He can't stand here and listen to someone as good as say they wish Stiles was dead, that he'd be better off gone than back here or out with the wolves, the only two options for a human – suffer free or suffer caged, and which one stings the least? Derek can't think about that. Not when he's spent so much of his life listening to his mother speak about this place, about all the sanctuaries, like they were escapes. 

He thought he was letting Stiles _escape_. God, he feels like ripping his hair out for how stupid he's been. 

“Why don't you just come out and say it?” Derek snaps, before Stilinski can start in on another round of horrible imagery. “You know it, and I know it, so let's save each other the time.” 

“Why don't you say it yourself?” 

Derek listens to Stiles' heart beat thumping from inside the hut, listens to his steady breathing and his footsteps moving back and forth across the dirt as he tells a story about a time when he was a kid that he fell and bumped his head on that exact little table. He still has the scar, _wanna see_? – he can imagine Stiles leaning forwards to show Scott, pointing to that small puckering of flesh around the side of his forehead underneath his hairline. Derek has noticed that scar, and he's traced the pads of his fingers over it more times than he can easily count. “I can't leave him out here.” 

Stilinski takes it like a gunshot, even though he knew it was coming. With a slow nod, and a voice as rough as gravel, he says, “I can't take care of him. Not like this.” 

There it is, out there for Derek to hear and be forced to accept – the proof that all that Derek has done in Stiles' best interest has all, as a matter of fact, been a waste. That he's made yet another mistake, and Stiles is going to be the one who's going to have to pay for it, in the end. 

“He'd be better off out there. With a Hale.” Again, with Derek's family name being dropped like it's fucking Biblical to these people – and that's when Derek knows why. He understands now. All these humans know, really, is that the Argents are evil and terrible, and that the Hales oppose the things that they do. Following that logic, the Hales are like saviors to them. They believe implicitly what his mother says, entirely and without doubt trust that somehow, Talia Hale is going to come through for them and do the right thing by them. 

Don't they know all she wants to do is send humans back here? To overflow the population, drop more mouths in here to feed without any food or way to do so? What do they think? What have they been told? None of it's true. Not a word of it. But believing in that, believing in the Hales and Talia and Derek – Christ, that may very well be all these people have anymore. That one tiny sliver of hope that there's some wolves out there that care about them. 

“If he goes with you, he has – opportunities. He could...it's just that out here there's – nothing.” He gestures outwards, and Derek doesn't even turn to look. He's already seen enough _nothing_ for one lifetime. “He's my kid, all right? I know what's best for him.” Which is funny – because Derek thought he knew what was best for Stiles, as well. They might both turn out to be wrong, in the end. That's just the funny part about doing the right thing. Sometimes, the thing thing – it's just not that easy. It's not as easy as _he belongs with his father_ and it's not as easy as _he doesn't belong out there with the wolves._

There are too many variables. Strings and ropes hoisting up the sails that's even keeping any of them above water, and snapping the wrong one at the wrong time could end in nothing but disaster. 

Derek doesn't know what the right thing to do is. He doesn't even know _who's_ right, anymore. Kate Argent might come right back into this place and take children by the dozens to be auctioned off, but _at least_ she'll drop off a box of canned peaches for the humans to squabble over and subsist on so she'll still have another crop of them to choose from for the next raid. Talia Hale might just dump them all here to fend for themselves with no real leverage to get by on their own, but _at least_ they wouldn't be under the control of the wolves anymore. 

Any way he looks at it, a price is being paid. The Argents or Talia, out there or in here – none of it comes without its cons. If everything that's given to the humans is really just another pitfall, another setback, then who's going to be the one to really help these people? To actually do something, for once, instead of sitting back and letting these things just _happen_ just because it keeps the entire system the wolves have built afloat? 

Derek guesses that falls to him, now. And he also guesses that he to start with Stiles. 

“You're just going to send me off with your son?” Derek clarifies in a low voice. “You're just letting a wolf take him again?” 

“Like I said. He's my kid. Maybe it's been a few years, but I know my son,” he shifts his eyes to the hut as if he can laser straight through and see Stiles standing there, whole and unhurt and healthy and not skin and bones like everyone else around him, here, “and I saw the way he looks at you. He trusts you. I can't be selfish and put him through this life just because I -” his voice cracks, a pause for him to clear his throat, and then he starts over. “...I don't want to think he's better off dead, anymore, Derek. I want to think he's better off someplace else. If that's with a wolf,” he spits the word out, “then I have to do the right thing.” 

“The right thing,” Derek repeats tonelessly. “You're so sure you know what it is.” 

Stilinski's lips thin out into a barely there smile. “No one knows. Sometimes, you just have to jump and hope you don't sink.”

\----

Stiles isn't stupid. Derek has said this same exact thing again and again, in a hundred variations, tried to convince all the wolves around him of this. He's smart. He's perceptive. He knows when something's going on. He can't just smell indecision and regret on Derek, but he can read facial expressions and he can look around himself and see what there is to be seen.

He knows there's no food, here. He knows it's dangerous, here. And he knows that Derek would never fucking leave him here, just like he knows that Derek would never hurt him. Derek can't let him starve, and Derek can't let him die from exposure out in the wilderness. Stiles knows that. He knows it, and he's stubborn. 

So, when Derek and his father walk back inside, he just _knows._ He stands up from where he had been squatting in the dirt sketching out a zig zag design with his fingers to show Allison and Scott how he used to have fun as a kid, all the way to his full height. He takes one look at his father's face, and he just knows. 

Derek and Stiles' father had been planning on spending another few hours, here, giving Stiles some time with other humans and with his father before they would be taking him away from all of this again, to send him back to a place where he doesn't belong or fit in and is scared all the time. Derek wanted to give him that, at least. Some memories that aren't so horrible for him to hold onto, one recent memory of his father that isn't him being dragged out of bed and screaming for his dad to help him. 

That goes out the window pretty much instantaneously, and it's just chaos from that moment onward. 

Stiles backs up into the wall, holding his hands out in front of him, and snaps, “ _no_.” 

Stilinski and Derek exchange a look, sharing with each other the knowledge that Stiles is going to make this as hard as possible. “Stiles,” that's a voice that Derek's never heard used in Stiles' direction before – commanding and severe, but not belittling or condescending. Parental. Authoritarian. Stiles has most likely needed that, as he's been growing up. “...listen to me -”

“No,” he hisses again, pressing himself even harder against the dark wall. “You don't understand, you _don't_ understand...”

Allison and Scott are standing back somewhat awkwardly, but with their arms crossed over their chests like they're in on this, as well. Boxing Stiles into a corner so he doesn't have much of a say in the matter. They heard the entire conversation outside, most likely. There's nothing that needs to be discussed with them, there's nothing that needs to be explained, here. The only one who doesn't know explicitly what's going on here is Stiles – though he's deduced more than enough to be terrified. 

“One day you'll understand,” he reaches his hand out to touch his son, but Stiles jerks back and away, sliding across the wall, “...I can't take care of you, Stiles.” 

“You don't know what they do out there,” Stiles says manically, shaking his head back and forth. “You don't know what they've done to me, dad, please, I – I don't care about the food, I've been hungry before, I can do it again, I -”

Derek tries to take absolutely none of this personally. He tries to remind himself that when Stiles says _they_ , he means the wolves like the factory owners, and the wolf who tattooed that tiger onto his back when he was just a kid. He means Kate Argent and maybe even Talia and Derek's father – he doesn't mean Derek. And he doesn't mean Allison or Scott, either. 

Derek convinces himself of this. 

“I won't,” Stiles says defiantly, even though his chin is starting to wobble with unshed tears. “I'm refusing. I won't go. I'm staying here with you. This is where I belong.” 

The truth is, Stiles doesn't belong anywhere. The wolves have seen to that. He doesn't belong out there with them, and he doesn't belong in here with the humans, and what does that make him? Which direction does that leave him to go? 

_He belongs with me_ , Derek thinks with conviction, possessively, that dark wolf part of his mind snarling at the thought. 

"Stiles. I have to do what's best for you -"

"I'm _not_! Going!"

There's a pause. Stilinski sighing deeply through his nose and rubbing a hand over his face, Allison and Scott shaking their heads sadly and watching this, Derek standing stock still, unsure what to do with himself. 

Stiles' father looks right at him, shakes his head. "Just grab him." 

It's almost exactly what that alpha werewolf girl had said to Derek that day that Stiles tried to run away, when Derek had come downstairs into her basement and found him locked up in a cage. He was too afraid to get out of the cage, too afraid of what was going to happen to him once he got out, because at least - at least the cage was something he was familiar with. At least in the cage, no one was going to hurt him. 

She had said, _just grab him_. And Derek couldn't do it then. 

He can't do it now, either. The problem is, Derek can tell that no amount of gentle cooing and coaxing is going to get Stiles out of here. The only option is to force him, drag him out of here whether he likes it or not, but Derek's just not ready to do that to him. He stays put where he is, looks at Stiles once, before averting his eyes and shaking his head. "Scott." 

Scott doesn't appear to have the same problem. He steps forwards, his hands reaching out for Stiles, and again, the human jerks back and away – though he's running out of places to run. 

“I won't go! You can't make me! Dad, wait, _wait_ -” he scrunches himself into one corner of the room, as deep as he can get himself, and shrinks down, “you don't want me to go back, you _don't_ want me to go -”

“Of course I don't,” his voice is tight, forced out like rubbing metal against metal. “I want you to actually _live_ , Stiles. Understand that.” He reaches out, squatting down to get onto Stiles' level, and immediately Stiles flings himself at his father – wraps his arms around his neck, buries his face into his shoulder, and _clings_. “I'll see you again. Better times.” 

“Don't,” Stiles warns. Just like Derek has seen too many times before, now, Stiles is crying. Big heaving sobs. “ _Don't_ say goodbye to me, I'm staying. _Dad_.” 

Stilinski rubs his hand up and down Stiles' back, once, twice. Squeezes him tight for another second with his eyes shut – as though he's burning this moment into his memory -before reaching up to try and uncurl Stiles' fingers from around his neck. 

“You don't know how they look at me out there,” Stiles is going for desperation, now, pushing at the buttons he knows he has to in order to try and get his father to change his mind. “You don't know anything about what it's like out there. They've tortured me,” Derek wishes he could refute that – but one look at the knife scars on his back, the tattooes, and he knows that it's true. “They've – they -”

Scott wraps his hands around Stiles' hips and pulls. Even with Stiles clinging on for dear life, all the strength he has inside of him, he just goes. As easy as picking up a kitten from a basket, Scott's got him in his arms. Stiles thrashes, tries elbowing Scott in the chest but only winds up hurting himself in the process with a grunt of pain, and Derek steps forward. 

“Don't -” he starts. Doesn't know where to go from there. Don't hurt him? Don't make him? It's just too late for that, and it's been too late for years. 

“Put me down,” Stiles hisses indignantly, but Scott's already starting to walk outside. “ _Stop it_. No, no, no, _no_ -”

Stiles has been traumatized ten times over. The thought of going back into wolf country means going back to a place where he is treated like a toy. It means going back to a place where he has memories of being cut open just because someone _could_ cut him open. It means being forced against his will to do this, and to do that, all because someone else says he has to. 

It also means he'll be fed. He'll be clean. He'll have medical doctors that know how to treat any ailments a human could encounter. Derek has enough money to get Stiles the best of everything, anything he wants, anything he needs, _anything_ , ten times over. 

Except for his own agency. That, Derek keeps fucking up. 

It has to be one of the wost things Derek has ever done in his life – standing idly by while Scott McCall carts Stiles off as he shouts and cries and tries fruitlessly to get away, to make his own choice, to be his own person, for once. Scott wraps his wrists up in one hand, tugs Stiles' back against his chest, and carries him against his will back to the car Jordan is still guarding. 

Derek walks silently beside Stiles' stoic father. He knows that both of them, right now, feel like the two most horrible people that have ever lived. Listening to this and just accepting it for what it is, all based on the hopes that they know what's best for Stiles, and that Stiles can't make that decision on his own right now without clouding his judgment with emotions. All he wants is to be with other humans, with is father, to feel normal and among people who are like him. 

That's just not what he needs. He doesn’t see that, not at this very second. He will. He's smart.

He'll realize that sometimes you can't sink, and you can't swim – you just have to float. Accept. Adapt. Of course it isn't fucking fair to ask Stiles to spend the rest of his life treading water waiting either for another wave to hit or for the current to finally sweep him back to land where he can breathe again. Of course it's not _fair_. 

Most things aren't. Derek gets now that there were never any options for Stiles. There was never anyplace for him to go. Not in this universe.

In one of those alternate ones that Stiles likes to think about, maybe there is.

As they walk, and as Stiles causes a scene and yells, some of the other humans just stand there and watch. At first, Derek thinks it's interesting that not a single one of them are going to step in, even though they're watching a human being manhandled by a wolf, when earlier they looked like they'd been willing to set Derek on fire for even looking at one of them wrong. But, then again, this is a scene that they've all most likely seen a million times over in their lifetimes, even the little kids. 

A human, one of their own, being taken away against their will by a wolf. It's old news. They watch placidly, blinking, the way wolf-kids can watch violence on television without a flicker of emotion on their faces. 

When Scott forces Stiles into the car as Jordan hops off the hood, when the door slams shut behind him, Derek jumps into the opposite side before Stiles gets the chance to open his own door and climb back out again. He grabs Stiles' shirt right as the human is trying to unlock his door, and presses him back against the leather of the seat. No amount of thrashing on his part does him any good, and Derek pretends to be somewhere else in his own head. 

"I'll see you again, Stiles," his father says to him through the dark glass of the window. Stiles presses his hand against the glass, glares out, but he doesn't say anything. There's nothing much left for him to say. "Better times." 

Derek doesn't know if there will ever be better times for humans. He can't make that promise. But he'll think of someway for Stiles to see his father again; someway, somehow, he'll come up with something. He'll try. That's the best that he can do. 

Stiles starts in on Derek. As they're driving out and away, away, away, back to wolf territory, out of the walls, Stiles nearly breaks his hand trying to slap Derek across the face before Derek catches his wrist and pins him down so he won't try that again. 

Once the slapping is off the table, Stiles starts yelling at him. 

_How dare you, how could you, I trusted you, I can't leave him here, I can't go back there, you liar, you fucking liar, I can't believe you could do this, I want to go home, I want my dad, I want my life back, I want everything back, I want._ Derek lets him say everything, lets him call Derek every name in the book, because he can't refute it. As far as the truth goes, Derek is a liar. He's a fucking liar, and he hurt Stiles, and - he sort of wishes that Stiles was stronger so that he _could_ slap Derek in the face. 

At the end of it all, Stiles is just crying. Through the woods, while Allison and Scott sit in stony silence up front with their eyes cast dead ahead, Scott's hands gripping the steering wheel so tight it should be snapping in half at any second, Allison clenching her fists in her lap and shaking her head. 

“I'm sorry,” Derek says. He thinks about when Stiles and Derek first met – when he snapped Stiles' finger because he didn't know any better. How he said he was sorry, and it meant nothing to Stiles, at the time – but this time has to be different. He has to make it clear, what he means, that this isn't what he wants, either. “I'm _sorry_. If I could change things for you, I would.” 

If Derek could change the entire world so Stiles could have it his way, _exactly_ his way, he would do it. All the things he wants and nothing less. All the people and things he's lost, his entire childhood back in his lap with a snap of Derek's fingers. 

“Your father was sure that he -”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Stiles snaps with more conviction than Derek's ever heard from him. “You didn't even give me – a _choice_.” 

“You'd have died out there, Stiles,” Allison interjects quietly from the front. “It's not safe, there. You're too used to eating well, to shelter, you'd die of exposure before -”

“It would've been my decision to make if I wanted it!” Stiles cuts her off. “If I wanted to die out there, then that's _my_ choice!” 

“That's selfish, Stiles. What about the people who care about you?” 

“Must be nice,” Stiles hisses, “to know what _selfish_ feels like.” 

Without another word, without nowhere else to go, he climbs into the third row of seats, and vanishes – sinks down onto the floor of the car and pulls his knees up to his chest. He compacts himself so small back there Derek can only see him if he cranes his neck and twists, which he does every twenty minutes or so, just to make sure he's all right. 

For the first hour, past the checkpoint and beyond it, Stiles keeps his face hidden in the crook of his arms and sniffles. Doesn't speak a word. Allison and Scott start talking about one thing or another, probably just to fill the deafening silence inside the car, and Derek just sits. He thinks about how it _would_ be nice if Stiles knew what selfish feels like, if he knew what it's like to just get what he wants. Derek knows - he knows what it's like to take exactly what he wants without caring what anyone else wants, and he knows how to spend money and he knows how to hurt people and lie and double cross just so the end result is how he wants it to be. 

The only thing Stiles has ever known is doing exactly what other people have told him to. Selfish isn't even in his fucking wildest dreams, at this point. 

The second hour, Stiles lifts his eyes and glares bloodshot and teary at the opposite end of the car, blinking every now and again without a single expression crossing his face. It reminds Derek of the look he had the first day they met, and he can't bear to think that all this has done is drag them back to that place. Dragged them back to being strangers, again. 

Third hour, and Stiles is uncurling from his ball and stretching his legs out – even though he definitely sees Derek glancing at him, he doesn't even acknowledge him. Just stares dead ahead out into space, unseeing. Just existing for the time being. Probably vanishing inside his own head, someplace where Derek and wolves and Talia and everything - all of it - is nowhere to be found. 

Fourth, Stiles climbs up over the seats and plops himself down across from Derek. 

Taking this as an opening, maybe the only one Derek is likely to ever get from Stiles after all of this, he opens his mouth. “I'm sorry, Stiles,” he tries again – because he is. He really is. Maybe not for what Stiles wants to hear, not for taking him away from there, not for protecting him from that place and whatever fate would've awaited him there. But for the fact that any of this is real - that this is the reality he lives with. This is what he gets. Derek is sorry. “But I couldn't – I couldn't.” 

Stiles huffs and presses his forehead against the window, but he doesn't say anything. It's a lot better than him screaming and crying and causing a scene, so Derek counts his blessings. The silent treatment is better. The silent treatment is progress. 

For what he's done here, Derek deserves Stiles' silence for the rest of his life. 

After another twenty or so minutes, Stiles clears his throat, alerting Derek to whip his head over at the sudden noise and wait anxiously for anything else to follow it. Stiles pulls away from the window, leans back in his seat, and nods his head slowly up and down. “My dad couldn't have kept me safe, out there.” 

Derek doesn't add anything to that, because the absolute last thing that Stiles needs right now is for Derek to pile on the other obvious facts. Like how Stiles' father could barely keep _himself_ safe, out there. Like how without any interjection from the wolves, all those humans will be dead before next winter. So, he just remains quiet, and listens for Stiles to say anything else. 

“You can keep me safe.” There's a beat, and then Stiles is turning to stare Derek directly in the eyes. “I get it.” 

“You're mad at me,” Derek says lowly, something like shame coloring his tone. 

Stiles shakes his head. “I never would've left on my own. I was going to be dragged out kicking and screaming or not at all.” He shrugs, glancing back down at his legs to play with a loose strand on his jeans. “I was upset. I'm sad. I'm not – mad. Not at you.” 

Which doesn't make sense to Derek, not at all, because Stiles should be mad at Derek, by all rights. He should be absolutely fucking furious, he should never forgive Derek for any of this. It's more than Derek deserves for Stiles to even look at him, right now. 

But like he's reading Derek's mind, Stiles continues on. “I can't be mad at you if I know you're right. I can't be mad at _you_ , period.”

It could be because Derek is all Stiles has left in the world, anymore – the only person out there who's going to protect him, has the ability to shield him from other wolves who would want to harm him, would willingly put himself in harm's way to keep Stiles from getting hurt. It could be because Stiles doesn't know any better. Either way, Stiles shifts across the seats, pressing himself into the middle up against Derek's side and leaning against the wolf. "I'm sad," he says again. "I wanted everything to be like it was. A part of me -" he laughs, something sad and bitter, "...part of me even half expected my mom to be there, waiting for me. I was delusional. I was stupid."

“I'm sorry.” As many times as he says it, it doesn't ever sound like enough. 

“It's okay,” Stiles says, in a way that sounds more like _it's not, not at all_. “At least I have you. No one gets everything.” 

He can't have both Derek and his father at the same time. It's just not possible, not in this world, and not with the way that things are. It simply can't be done. Humans don't get to have their families or real houses to keep them warm or food – not without paying a price, first. Not without being taken away. 

"There's somewhere out there," Derek starts, placing his hand hesitantly on the side of Stiles' neck, pressing just enough for comfort, "where everyone gets everything they want. Someplace parallel to here, right?"

Stiles doesn't smile, like Derek had been hoping, but he nods his head up and down like he firmly believes this. "There's a place where you and I meet like in movies. Where - you meet my dad and shake his hand and my mom is there and they live in a normal house like wolves do. And everything has the perfect angle and everyone says exactly the right things."

"Like the movies," Derek repeats, moving his fingers to scratch at the hairs at the base of Stiles' neck. "Yeah, that place is out there." Derek is only angry, now, that he can't drag that alternate place into the now. That he doesn't have the power to bring Stiles' mother back, to bring his father out and give him a real house like Stiles dreams about, that he can't reverse time so that Derek and Stiles could meet the way normal people do, in coffee shops or book stores or by having their legs tangled up by the leashes of their dogs.   
“The wedding is in two weeks,” He points out. Stiles had left his ring on his bedside table. Derek had thought he'd come back to his empty house and sit turning that ring around and around in his fingers, all by himself. Now, Stiles will have to slide it right back on and smile for cameras and wear whatever ridiculous outfit Lydia Martin puts him in. 

Derek's wolf likes that. Derek hates himself. 

Stiles runs his hands down his jeans, like he's wiping sweat off his palms nervously, and tries for a shrug of nonchalance – in spite of the fact that Derek can see the tight set of his shoulders, the frown on his face, the distant look in his eyes. “Then I guess we're getting married.”


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done!! *streamers* *balloons* *party hats* 
> 
> first of all I'd like to give #thanks to my good pal [derekhalee](http://derekhalee.tumblr.com) for being the idea man behind the fic and for viciously attacking me for any and all typos tbh. Second of all I'd like to shout out Taylor for writing This Love which inspired the title and half the romance and also my entire writing life as it stands today 
> 
> also, one thing I kinda wanna say, is that the ending of this in terms of Stiles and Derek isn't openended, it's air fuckin tight. But the ending in terms of other factors - it's pretty open to interpretation. I would've loved to write 130k about overthrowing the damn government, and man, I would've loved to have spent so much more time fine tuning all the details on this and really digging deep into other issues aside from just Stiles and Derek's relationship, but man. You gotta know when to throw your hands up and walk away from something before you get too far into it to ever really make anything of it if you know what I'm saying. The point is - I cut myself off, left some questions unanswered. 
> 
> trigger warning for this chapter is a panic attack - Derek's never seen one so he wouldn't know how to properly handle it, but I did my best to make it as realistic as possible!

When Scott pulls up outside of Derek's house upon arriving back in town, Talia's car is already sitting in the driveway. Derek takes one look at that, unbuckles his seatbelt before the car has even fully stopped, and says, “stay in the car, Stiles.” 

Stiles watches Derek unbuckle himself, open up his car door, start to climb out, and shakes his head. “Like Hell. I'm coming in.” 

“ _Stiles_.” 

“What's she gonna do?” He snaps, climbing out of the car at the same time as Scott and Allison. He drops down onto the grass right as Derek is coming around to the yard himself and rolls his eyes. “Yell at me?” 

That's just the thing of it. Derek has next to no idea what his mother is going to do. Throughout his entire life, he has done very, very few things to really and truly piss her off and go behind her back. He's done embarrassing things, like get drunk in public, and he's done stupid things, like make a complete ass of himself at one her functions. But he has never fucking once done something directly against her orders. Or, at least, nothing this big. Nothing this fucking serious. 

What Derek did ( _almost did_ , a voice reminds him bitterly) will be seen as virtually unforgivable in her eyes. He literally tried to sabotage her entire operation. There's no way he can talk himself out of it.

As a result, he really doesn't know what she's capable of. What levels of anger she's fucking reaching towards, right about now. It'd probably be best if Stiles were as far away as possible during this. 

It's too late either way. Stiles is already waltzing ahead of Derek in the grass, Scott and Allison trailing behind him, and Derek doesn't have many other places to send him until his mother cools down. Maybe Stiles is right. Maybe she'll just yell at them like she always does. Even though Talia yelling and glowing red eyes is fucking scary as hell, it's not that bad. It could be worse. 

They get inside, Derek draping his arm across Stiles' shoulders and pulling him close against his side, and the moment he sees his mother sitting there on the couch in his living room, he thinks that it couldn't _possibly_ be worse than this. Something about actually feeling her anger in the air, smelling it, palpably running his fingers through it as he walks forwards, coupled with the eerily calm look on her face, her arms crossed over her chest...something about that just reminds him how truly terrifying his mother can be without even trying. 

It's half about her being an alpha, and half about her being his mother. 

Erica is there, and Lydia, hovering behind her in nice clothes and high heels, standing back looking moderately uncomfortable and like there are a billion places they'd rather be than here, right now. Bearing witness to what is probably going to be the beatdown of the century. 

Talia casts her eyes over the entire group, first Stiles, who shrinks tight against Derek's side under her gaze, then Allison, then Scott, and then, last but certainly not least, Derek. Derek swallows, and tries to keep eye contact for as long as possible. He cracks after three seconds, glancing down into Stiles' hair and sighing through his nose. 

“Stiles is still here,” she starts, voice quiet. “I guess you couldn't go through with it after all.” 

Derek clears his throat. “It wasn't about not being able to go through with it -”

“So, then, you admit it,” she talks over him. “You tried to disobey me -”

“It wasn't even about _you_.” God, she still doesn't get that. None of this is about her. None of it. 

“-and take Stiles back to the place he came from even though it would have jeopardized everything that I've worked my entire life for. You admit that.” 

He squares his shoulders. “I admit that I tried to do what I thought was the right thing.”

Talia blinks at him, once, twice, before moving her eyes away from Derek and over to the other two wolves standing idly beside him. “And _him_.” Derek doesn't even have to follow her gaze to know she's referring to Scott. “I specifically told you not to let him anywhere near Stiles -” Stiles glances up at Derek in surprise. Because Derek had lied about that and said his mother didn't have much of a problem with it. Secret's out. “...and now he's in on your entire little plot.” 

“It wasn't a _plot_. I was just – Stiles' father -”

Talia rises from the couch, smooths her skirt out with her hands, tosses her hair over her shoulder. “I know. You care so much about whatever pathetic little life he had in that place,” Stiles stiffens, but says nothing, “and yet you couldn't even bring yourself to let him go, in the end. I knew the entire time, you'd never be able to do it.”

That explains the look she had given him, that knowing smirk when she smelled Stiles all over Derek that day in her office. She thought she had won, then, gotten Derek to fall in love with the human - and because she knows better than anyone exactly how deep Derek's selfish tendencies go, she had assumed that meant Derek would've never been able to let Stiles go. Not for anything. 

Derek sets his jaw. His mother doesn't know the start. She doesn't know the fucking _start_ of what Derek would be willing to suffer if it meant Stiles would be happy, she doesn't know what he went through for days thinking that Stiles would be gone and far away from him. She just doesn't fucking understand. “Do you have any idea what it's really like out there? In the sanctuaries?” Talia opens her mouth to start another rant, but Derek talks over her. “They're all starving out there. Did you _know_ about that? Do you know that the Argents used to bring them food, and now there's not enough in the woods for them to _survive_?” 

Talia blinks in a way that suggests that she really and truly had no idea about any of that, which doesn't shock Derek in the least. Her face goes a bit slack with surprise for a few moments, her eyes shifting to Stiles quizzically. 

“He's not here because of me and he's not here for your fucking idiotic campaign. He's here because he has nowhere else to go.” 

Another moment, and the look of trepidation on Talia's face is all but gone. She sharpens her eyes and moves them back up to Derek's face with a glower. “I don't care, Derek.”

Derek believes that. He believes she doesn't care, and he believes that all the selfishness Derek always talks about came directly from her. Like mother like son. 

“You're the one who says you do,” Allison pipes up – even when Talia's razor sharp eyes swivel to her like lasers, she doesn't even flinch. “You always say you want to help the humans, but all you want to do is send them back to the sanctuaries.” 

“They'll die there,” Scott adds on quietly. “If you send them all back, they'll -”

“All of you, _be quiet_ ,” Talia snaps in her alpha voice, and the group has no choice whatsoever but to fall silent, averting their eyes to the ground. “That's enough. I don't care what happened, I don't care what you saw. The _only thing_ I care about is the fact that you -” she jabs her finger in Derek's direction, “have proven yourself as unworthy and undeserving of all the things I've ever done for you. Stiles included.” 

“Stiles didn't do anything -”

“That's not what I meant.” She steps forward, three harsh steps on the carpeting until she's standing within touching distance of himself and Stiles. “I gave Stiles to you. Didn't I? I paid for him. I'm the entire reason you have him to begin with.” As if he's just another one of the expensive cars she's bought for him ever since his sixteenth birthday, she says this. “And how do you repay me? By stabbing me in the back.” 

Derek starts to talk, starts to say _don't talk about him like that_ or _leave him out of this_ or just _something_ – but Talia's alpha voice comes back, and it's all Derek can do to snap his jaw shut and draw Stiles tighter up against him. 

“You realize that I have an entire wedding planned two weeks from tomorrow, don't you? That the entire world is watching every single move you make?” It's incredible, really truly fucking incredible, that Derek just stood here and point blank told his mother that the humans are starving to death in the sanctuaries, and her response is to talk about that idiotic wedding. It – it almost knocks Derek over in shock. 

That he's spent the past day going through revelation after revelation, and his mother is just blinking through it like it's water dripping down her back. Nothing to her. 

“If word got out that you did this, then I'd be a laughing stock. Kate Argent would gain the upperhand, and Stiles would be dragged out of your house under Argent commands. Did you even think about that?” 

Derek hadn't, in all honesty. All the moves that he's made for Stiles, all the things that he's done, he never once thought about what would happen if he really and truly went and fucked every thing up for his mother's campaign. If he did something that would ruin her image enough that Kate would win by a landslide, that Argents would gain power once more. 

More likely than not, if Kate Argent wins and drags more of her family members into government with her, and if Stiles is still around, she'll have him taken away on the grounds of abuse and keep him in a cage in her bedroom like a trophy while she files her fucking nails. 

Reading the look on his face, Talia snaps, “that's what I thought.” She raises her chin primly in the air, and shakes her head. “You've proven to be untrustworthy and a liability. It's clear to me I have to remind you who's running this entire thing, and who really has the power to do what, here.” Those words alone are enough to send a shiver down Derek's spine, but when she fits her eyes directly onto Stiles with some level of vindictiveness, Derek gets genuinely frightened. “You need to learn that just as easily as you think you can ruin things for me -”

“Mom...”

“...I can take whatever I want away from you.” She looks up into Derek's eyes, narrows her own, and says, “let go of him.”

Stiles leans back into Derek, sensing what's happening here, and Derek just digs his fingers in deeper to his upper arms. “You're not taking him.” Even though he knows it's useless, that he's trying to disobey an alpha, that he really only has seconds of leverage, he says this. Like he has any control over the situation anymore. 

“Derek,” she glows her eyes red, and Derek's fingers loosen of their own volition at seeing those eyes and hearing her voice. “Let him go.” 

Fighting the alpha power is painful on its own. Fighting the alpha power of _his_ alpha is nearly impossible. And fighting the alpha power of his mother...it just can't be done. No matter how hard Derek tries to keep his fingers tightly wrapped around Stiles, no matter how much he doesn't want Talia putting her hands anywhere near him, he doesn't have a choice. He makes a pained noise, drops his arms down to his sides. 

Once there's nothing stopping her, Talia reaches forwards – in spite of the fact that Stiles tries to back up and away into Derek's chest – digs her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, and tugs him. Hard. 

He goes staggering forwards with a startled cry, before winding up held with an arm across his chest against Talia's front. He eyes Derek with some level of terror at being handled like this by Talia, by an alpha, and Derek feels like clawing his own eyes out. But he can't even do that. All he can do is stand there and growl under his breath. 

“Just like taking your car keys away,” she says. Stiles doesn't try to say anything. He doesn't even try to fight her off. He knows good and well that it would be fruitless, absolutely useless and a waste of his time and energy. If Derek can't even help him, then he knows he can't help himself. He just stands there, fidgeting his fingers, staring at Derek. 

“If you _hurt_ him -” Derek starts out in a voice like gravel, but Talia is already rolling her eyes and sighing. 

“Oh, please. I wouldn't do anything to him and you know that good and well,” maybe Derek knew that before all this, before the arranged marriage and this entire campaign, but lately he's been really starting to question it, “I just need you to know I can do this. Whenever I want. I paid for him,” she says again, and Derek feels like vomiting all over the floor, “I have his papers. You should fucking remember that. Lydia,” she calls. 

When Lydia clacks forward reluctantly in her heels, Talia releases her hold on Stiles, fisting her fingers into his shirt and shoving him towards Lydia. She catches him, puts her hands on his shoulders and gently squeezes, before leaning down to murmur _it's okay_ in his ear. She and Erica both look like they've being asked to do something they really don't want to do by participating in this, by treating Stiles like one of Derek's toys they can take away whenever he's done something _bad_ , but it's not like they have much of a choice in the matter, either. 

Stiles looks over his shoulder at Derek with huge eyes, but again, doesn't try to fight Lydia off. When back in the sanctuary, Stiles had fought fucking tooth and nail to get away, to get what he wanted, finally, now, he just looks - he just looks tired. 

He looks like a kid who's had everything taken away from him, over and fucking over again, and now doesn't even have the energy to try and fight the inevitable anymore. Resignation. That's what's in his eyes. Fate accepted. 

“Just for a few days,” Talia says, pulling out her phone to reply to a text like this is all just another piece of business she had to attend to. “Until you remember your place. He'll be fine. Besides – he's not the one in trouble. He's too stupid to know any better.” 

She starts walking towards the door. Erica follows first, eyeing Derek in apology before casting her eyes down to the ground in shame. Lydia stands back with Stiles for a moment, scritching her fingernails into his neck and staring blankly out into space. She can probably feel ten times over his heart pounding in anxiety and terror in his chest, his breath quickening, and she feels horrible that she's a part of all of this. 

In a single day, Stiles is being dragged away from his father, and from Derek. Just hours apart from each other. 

Then, with a sigh, Lydia starts leading Stiles out of Derek's house. He tries to drag his feet a bit, but it's no use. Lydia powers him forwards, even on his stumbling feet, and the last thing he manages to do before being forced through the door is glance over his shoulder and lock eyes with Derek. 

Once they're out of the house, Derek can move again. He shoots across the floor towards the window, while in the background Scott starts yelling about how Talia is nothing like he thought she was, this that and the other thing, and what are they going to do, whatever are they going to do about this mess, _Christ what can we even do anymore?_ Derek stares out the window, watches as Stiles gets pushed inside the backseat of Talia's car, and Erica slides in behind him. Hopefully, she wraps him into a hug and tells him everything's going to be okay. 

 

Everything _will_ be okay, is the thing. 

Talia's not taking Stiles away to lock him in a cage and handfeed him the scraps left over from dinner. 

She's probably got him set up in some huge room back at the mansion, with servants waiting on him hand and foot, meals cooked for him by a five star chef Talia keeps in the kitchen. He has a swimming pool at his leisure (though Derek highly doubts he knows how to swim), a private theater, an indoor spa, and the entertainment of a handful of tiny little yapping dogs. The worst thing that'll happen to him is he'll be woken up every morning at seven am on the dot and dragged down to an awkward and tense breakfast with Talia, Derek's father, and Cora – who's been living back at home for the past couple of months while she films more of those ridiculous commercials. He will absolutely and positively be fine, if maybe a little nervous and lonely. 

Like Talia said. Stiles wasn't the one in trouble. The only one who's truly suffering, here, is Derek. Being away from Stiles on its own is terrible, smelling his scent all over the house, sitting alone on the couch watching television without Stiles' running commentary, eating by himself in silence. It just fucking sucks. That's really not the worst part of it though, and Talia knows that good and well.

The worst part of it is just the knowledge that Talia is right. She really _can_ do this anytime she wants, and there's nothing that Derek can really do to stop her, so long as Stiles isn't officially claimed as his. If she wanted to, she could take him away forever, have him shipped off to live in one of their summer houses with no one for company except a maid or two to make sure he doesn't get himself killed or kidnapped. She could do literally anything she wants with him. 

The thought is absolutely fucking maddening. Especially to the wolf side of Derek – as far as the wolf in him is concerned, Stiles already _is_ claimed as his, an imaginary bite in his neck. No one should be able to just take him like that, so the fact that someone can and _has_ is driving him absolutely fucking insane. 

“He went on hunger strike for a while,” Cora tells him over the phone the following day. In the background, Derek can hear the telltale sound of a lawn mower in the distance, which puts Cora out by the pool bathing in sunlight and drinking margaritas at eleven o'clock in the morning. “He tried to sit there at the dinner table not eating anything and mom, like, went bananas.” 

Derek bets that she did. 

“...he started building a fort with his fingers out of the meatloaf and mashed potatoes -” Derek has seen him do that before. Wherein he slices up very precise bricks of the meatloaf, then uses the potatoes as a kind of paste to glue together a tiny little igloo looking thing. The thought of Talia sitting there watching as Stiles digs his fingers into expensive food and then wipes potatoes off on the thousand dollar table cloth is enough that Derek has to suppress a laugh. “...and I swear, she had to restrain herself from attacking him.” 

“Where is he now?” 

“Well -” she huffs out a sigh, “I tried to teach him how to swim, but apparently he's petrified of large quantities of water.” Seeing as how Stiles has more likely than not never in his life been dropped into a vat of water any bigger than a bath tub, this is not surprising to Derek at all. “So now he's treed himself and refuses to come down.” 

Derek rubs at his eyes. To hear these things back to back – him building houses out of food with his hands and then climbing up a tree – you'd think Stiles was some kind of cave-creature. Chances are, he's just doing anything and everything he can to drive Talia absolutely up a fucking wall. Or, up a tree, would be more accurate. It's the only form of protest Stiles really has. 

“He's in a tree right now?” 

“The big maple across from the pool. The maids have been trying to get him down for about an hour, now. Any minute, they're just going to climb up there and grab him, and mom will stick him back with me to make sure he doesn't try anything else funny.” 

Derek runs a hand down his leg, taps his fingers against his knee. “Is he – I mean...” he clears his throat. “Mom's not being cruel, is she?” 

“Depends on your definition,” she says coolly. Derek knows that it's the truth. Talia would never in a thousand years ever dream of laying a hand on a human to physically harm them. One of her core belief systems is that wolves are stronger and better and faster than humans, and that to hurt one of them is like hurting a little kitten. There's no reason to do that to a creature who doesn't understand why, and anyone who would is a deviant. 

But, on that same wavelength, thinking that way about Stiles – as if he's just a tiny little animal with half a brain and no real concept of how the world works – that leads to some pretty odd treatment. Derek imagines she tries bribing him into things with shiny gifts and vats of macaroni and cheese, dresses him up in little outfits and talks baby talk to him all the time. It's probably driving Stiles insane. Hence, the tree. His only escape from belittlement. 

“I'd put him on the phone but – first of all, he's in a tree. And, also, mom said not to. Seeing as how she's paying off my credit card bills, I have no place to go against her word.” 

“That's fine,” Derek says irritably. Even if he got Stiles on the phone, he can imagine that all the human would do is complain for minutes on end about how evil it is over at the Hale mansion and how everyone looks at him like he's an idiot, and all it'll do is piss Derek off all the more and make him want to go over there and take him away. If he tries that, he'll fail. And his mother will just lengthen the sentence. 

“I guess I'll call later on and update you – whoops. They're climbing up there. Yup. They're grabbing him. I wish you could see this shit – he's trying to climb up higher.” 

Derek rubs at his eyes again. He tries not to think about Stiles falling out of that tree like he used to when he was a kid living at the orphanage. He actually never gave very much thought as to why he liked climbing trees so much, did it often enough that he got sent to the hospital over it more than once. Now he guesses he understands why. 

So, Stiles is all right, just like Derek knew he would be. All the same, when Derek goes up to bed for the night, his second night alone, he can't keep himself from using Stiles' pillow instead of his own, inhaling the scent of Stiles' hair embedded deep into the fibers of the fabric.

\----

Kate Argent in person is one thing.

In person, she's moderately intimidating, and having her eyes directly on you from only feet away is a lot like being stared down by a rattling snake just waiting to pounce on you the second that you make a wrong move it doesn't appreciate. A sort of warning signal goes off the second you wind up in the same room with her, as if it's a survival instinct to get as far away from her as possible. 

On television, it's different. Even though there's miles and miles between her and Derek right now, even though the only way he's even seeing her is through broadcast signals and the plasma of his television screen, there's just something eerie about it. Her eyes stare straight through, her broad, chilling smile emphasized by the bright lights she's standing under, and it's almost worse than really being there. High-definition Kate. One of Derek's least favorite things. 

Still, he can't find it in himself to flip the channel the second she walks out on stage with the same fake-smile his mother gives and approaches a microphone to start hissing at the audience. Like a car crash or a train wreck, he can't tear his eyes away from the screen. 

There are loud cheers from the audience filled with Argent supporters, whistling and applause that lasts for long seconds after she's already standing there and moving her hands up and down to signal for quiet. Derek sets his jaw and watches her every movement as if he half expects her to leap out of the television and try to rip his throat out. 

Finally, the crowd dies down enough for her to lean into the microphone with all her pearly white teeth out on display. She runs through the usuals, a sort of template that Derek has heard upwards of a thousand times from both her, his mother, and not to mention a zillion other politicians who have ever given addresses like this. With the election so close, only a few months away now, both Talia and Kate have to really start hammering shit into people's heads, gathering as many of the swing votes as they possibly can from standing around on television and in magazines and everywhere blabbing about the most important issues of the moment. 

Of course, now, and almost always lately, it's human rights. 

In testament to this, Kate has a handful of her own humans lined up behind her, standing there with vacant expressions on their faces, nice clothes, perfectly groomed hair, their hands delicately folded in front of them. They look like little figurines that Kate has set up and adjusted to her liking. Which is more or less exactly what they are, to her. Just decoration. 

“You know,” Kate is saying now, smoothing her lip gloss out by rubbing her lips together for a moment. “...my opponent has some very _interesting_ ideas about how humans are meant to be treated. She always has. But it was one thing when Talia Hale just wanted to leave the humans all on their own to fend for themselves. It was one thing when the Hales wanted to run the risk of our human populations dwindling down until there was nothing left.” 

She pauses for dramatic effect, leaning in closer as if she's about to let everyone in on a little secret she's been keeping. 

“But it's another for the Hales to take one of them and try to force him to be like us.” 

It was only a matter of time until Kate and all her little lackies and supporters started talking about Stiles. Really, it's surprising that it's taken her this long to get up on a podium with Stiles' name on her lips – but that doesn't make it any less infuriating for Derek to have to sit there and listen to. 

“Talia Hale must be living in some serious state of delusion if she genuinely believes Stiles Hale -” which is his last name now only because of whose money was used to pay for him, nothing more and nothing less, “-has any idea of what she's putting him through. Humans don't understand the customs that we have, like marriage and family.” 

Well, Stiles wouldn't, would he? Considering the family he had has been all but ripped to shreds by the Argents themselves, of course, he doesn't fully grasp the fucking concept of what it's really like to have one. 

“Humans don't understand real love, real commitment, what it means to be devoted to someone for the rest of their lives. Stiles doesn't have the first idea of what that ridiculous ring on his finger really is. He doesn't even understand that all his masters are doing is using him for their own selfish gains.” At this, the crowd cheers in assent. Everyone standing out there in that crowd agrees wholeheartedly with what Kate's saying – that humans are just that stupid and that clueless, that even though they reproduce themselves and build up their own families and try to survive in their own communities, they just don't get it. 

All of that would be better suited for factories. Gather up humans like cattle and churn them out like toys. Get all the in-between stuff out of the way. 

“Poor little Stiles is just another one of Talia's pawns, only she expects him to be able to act like a wolf. I guess she doesn't see how cruel it is to try and make him be something that he's not. By allowing her son Derek Hale -” this name apparently pisses the crowd off a million times more than Talia's ever could, because a gentle round of booing actually starts up in slow ripples. Jesus Christ, Derek thinks. When the fuck did he become more hated within the Argent clan than even Talia? “...to actually try and marry that human, she's allowing violent abuse against a human to happen right underneath her nose, while pretending like she cares about what happens to them.” 

Abuse. _Violent_ abuse. Derek trails his eyes behind Kate, to the out of focus figures of her humans lurking in the background, and tries to understand how no one can see how hypocritical she's being even suggesting that Derek is the fucking abuser in this scenario. For trying to treat a human like an actual person, Derek is the bad guy. And people believe that. 

“Stiles Hale is just one of the many human victims of the Hale regime. A young, impressionable, clueless human that's been forced to do something he doesn't understand with a person who treats him in a way that doesn't make any sense to him. In that vein, to push him into a marriage like this – to allow her son to treat a human like that – well.” Her lips curve into somewhat of a dark smile, as she shakes her head sadly back and forth. “Derek Hale is nothing to me but a rapist.” 

She leans back, and in Derek's mind, he can see her doing a metaphorical mic drop. Letting the bomb fall, smirking as she watches the aftermath of the explosion, because the word is out there now, attached to Derek's name. 

Nevermind the fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of wolves out there in the state of California alone who really and truly do rape their humans. Nevermind the fact that a large percentage of the human population is dwindling only because werewolves keep _killing them_. 

Derek Hale is the real rapist, just for trying to love a human and treat him as an equal. 

This angle, this fucking spin that Kate has managed to swerve on the entire situation, is earth shattering. Talia is probably throwing an absolute fit in her office right now, throwing books around and cursing out her assistants, like Erica and Lydia, blowing a fucking gasket and strategizing how to hit back. 

As for Derek, this is the exact moment that he decides he doesn't know how the ship's going to go down, after all. And it'll go down - there's no doubt about it - but the question is _how bad_? How many survivors? Under whose orders? 

Is there one way to drown that's better than another?

\----

Talia lets Derek come pick Stiles up from the mansion only three days after she took him away – which feels really lenient, on her part, but Derek knows it must have something to do with Kate's little speech from the other night. Listening to that kind of a thing, even if it was a bit of stretch and over the top, must've been a lot like having a mirror put up to her face. Being made self-aware of what she was doing.

Taking Stiles away as if he's just a thing that she can push and pull and arrange to her liking, and then getting called out on it on national television – yeah. That has to absolutely be it. Derek doesn't care either which way. He's just glad to rip Stiles out from underneath her claws before any serious damage can be done. 

When the huge wooden door opens, a maid peers out at him with a grim look on her face that suggests she's had a very, very long day of either chasing Stiles out of trees or following Talia's ridiculous orders all over the house. Beyond her is Cora, already in her bathing suit and sunglasses and holding a glass of wine at ten o'clock in the morning. 

She waves Derek inside with a flick of her wrist, swigs at her drink. “It's about time,” she snaps irritably. “If I listen to mom yelling at him for another ten seconds I'm going to absolutely lose it.” 

“ _Yelling_ at him?” Derek repeats incredulously as he steps inside and the door gets slammed shut behind him. 

“In her way,” she clarifies. Which essentially means that Talia doesn't really yell – she just uses harsh words in a clipped tone of voice and glares at everyone. It feels a lot fucking worse than yelling. “I can't listen to another lecture about table manners. I just can't do it anymore. My childhood is coming back to haunt me.” 

Derek huffs out a sigh, imagining the hour long speeches Talia probably gave Stiles at the dinner table about fork placement and how to properly drink out of a cup. Poor Stiles. “Where is he?” 

“Wedding planning,” Cora says haughtily, before pointing in the vague direction of the long hallway that can only lead to the dining room, and flip-flopping her way past him towards the pool. 

Derek walks into the dining room to be met with the very, very strong smell of cake. And a lot of it. Further investigation finds Stiles sitting with his back turned in one of the intricately designed wooden chairs, leaning forward over the table the way he does when he's eating. In front of him, spread out on tiny little doilies on top of plates, sit about two dozen different mini cake of varying shapes and colors - square, round, rectangular, brown, white, purple, on and on and on. Talia is perched at the head of the table, watching him like a hawk, twirling her ankle with her lips pursed down hard in Stiles' general direction. 

It's the exact look she used to give her own children in those rare times she was actually there to raise them instead of one of the maids. The consternation, the annoyance, the _I cannot fucking believe I have to put up with this thing_ look. 

“You're supposed to _sample_ each one,” she says as Derek draws closer. “Two bites each. You're _not_ supposed to eat the entire thing, Stiles.” 

Stiles doesn't listen. He forks his way deeper into whatever cake he still has in front of him, and takes another bite. Talia must have heard Derek coming the second he walked through the door, but she only just now looks up to acknowledge his presence with little more than a narrowed eye and a frown on her face. 

“I don't know how you can deal with this, Derek.” As soon as his name is out of her mouth, Stiles is dropping his fork and craning his neck around to look at him, still chewing a mouthful of cake as he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “It's like talking to a wall.” 

Derek rolls his eyes at her, and Stiles starts pushing his way up and away from the table. He gets tripped up on one of the legs of the chair, nearly goes flying face first into the fancy rug underneath their feet, and Talia huffs, but makes no moves to try and stop him. Most likely, she's thrilled that his attention is finally occupied on something else aside from not doing exactly what she wants him to. 

Once Stiles has got himself righted again, he comes charging towards where Derek is steadily walking towards him, a smile spreading across his face. Anticipating his next move, Derek opens up his arms right on time for Stiles to leap into them. Derek is used to Stiles' body enough, by now, knows how fragile his limbs are and how easily he bruises and breaks, that it's not hard for him to know exactly how tight he can hold him before it gets to be too much. It's barely any pressure at all on Derek's part, but Stiles is probably holding on with all his strength and might, clutching at Derek's middle and burrowing his face into his chest. 

He smells like expensive shampoo, Cora, Talia, dogs, nice linens, a department store, clothing tags – but he doesn't smell anything at all like Derek or Derek's house or Derek's shampoo, like he usually does all the time. Derek hadn't even needed to scent mark Stiles anymore, even if they hadn't touched all day. Spend enough time around a person, sharing the same bed, and they carry your scent without even having to try. 

But, now, he just smells other. Wrong. It doesn't sit well with Derek at all. 

When the hug ends, Derek pulls away, juts his chin in the direction of all the cakes lined up, and says, “what's all this?” 

“Samples,” Talia says, a shrewd look on her face as she watches how Stiles stays pressed up against Derek's side, watches Stiles' fingers reach down to pull at Derek's. “For your wedding. In case you forgot about that.” As if Derek for even five seconds could. It's become all he's thought about. “Stiles was supposed to pick his favorite one, but he's being impossible. As usual.” 

“I said I like chocolate,” he says to Derek defensively, only barely glancing in Talia's direction. 

In a way that suggests she's heard him say this exact thing about a dozen times since he was plopped in front of those cakes, Talia throws her hands up. “Yes. But what _kind_ of chocolate? There are ten different variations here -”

Conspiratorially, as if Talia wouldn't be able to hear it either way, Stiles leans up on his tip-toes and murmurs into Derek's ear. “They all taste weird.” 

“I can't do this.” Talia raises her eyes to the ceiling and huffs. “I can't deal with him.” 

“They taste like dirt. Chocolate doesn't taste like that.” Most likely because all of these aren't chocolate, not in the strictest sense – they're expensive whoseywhatsies from some foreign country, cocos that Stiles would find strange and nasty because to him, chocolate is a ninety-nine cent bar of Hershey's from a gas station as a treat for being _good_. Stiles could probably count on one hand the number of times he's actually eaten chocolate, much less had an entire selection in front of him to choose from. One of those grocery store cakes covered in m &m's and kit-kats would probably make Stiles go bananas as if it were the most amazing thing he's ever laid eyes on. Unfortunately, Talia wouldn't allow an m&m within a hundred miles of this fucking wedding, even if it is supposed to be Stiles' big day. At this point, it's really all about Talia. 

“Just do a milk chocolate, mom. Honestly. It's not that hard.” 

She purses her lips and glares. “I suppose you'd like it, then, if I just scattered Reese's peanut butter cups all over the tables like some child's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.” 

Stiles looks at her with a mock hopeful expression on his face, all wide eyes and fake grin. Derek pinches the bridge of his nose, because he sees the sarcasm and attitude coming a mile away. “We can go to Chuck E. Cheese? Maybe the mouse himself will marry us, Derek.” 

Talia blinks at him, like she's been given this exact song and dance from Stiles many, many times in the past three days, and won't even humor him with a reaction. Apparently, in the time that Stiles has spent with her, he's at least learned that she's only as scary as her bark, even being an alpha. “I cannot. I just want to tape his mouth shut.” 

Stiles raises his eyebrows with a smirk at Derek, like he's enjoying this. 

“You can pick the god damn cake, then, mom. I cannot explain to you how little I care.” Truthfully, Derek doesn't care. Not about those tiny details that don't even fucking matter, in the long run. Cakes and decorations and what's Derek going to wear, god, he couldn't give a fuck. If this was a real wedding, and if it wasn't all for show, and if Talia wasn't calling the fucking shots, then...

Well. Every thing would be different. It's hard to imagine that scenario at all. 

“Fine, then.” She fixes her eyes on Stiles for a second, probably upset that she can't send him up to his temporary room again in a time-out like she's probably been doing constantly, and then primly raises her chin in the air. “Stiles' things are being put into your car right now. He can go.” 

Derek blinks at her. “Things?” Last time Derek checked, Stiles was dragged out without even his little backpack with his favorite book and jacket. 

“I took him shopping,” she says with a shrug. “You were dressing him like a homeless drifter living out of a Good Will bin.” 

“I was buying him things he actually likes,” Derek counters hotly, glancing down at Stiles' face to find it oddly drawn. That is an expression that Derek recognizes. It's the five hours in a department store with Talia Hale glazed-eyes look. He's been there many, many times. God only knows what horrors Stiles was forced to endure. He gets an image of Cora being made to tag along as Stiles' leash, more or less, holding onto his hand to make sure he doesn't run off somewhere and rolling her eyes while smacking bubblegum between her teeth. 

Like Talia doesn't care what Stiles does or doesn't like, she just shrugs again. “Now, he has actual clothing. Don't act like I _tortured_ him. I bought him toys, too.” 

Toys. _Like what,_ Derek thinks bitterly with a narrowed eye at his mother. _A ball of yarn for him to play with like a cat?_

Then, with the single most satisfied smile he's ever seen on his mother's face, she tacks on, “also, I told him he could keep Cinnamon.” 

Derek pauses. Squints. “What -” 

Talia snaps her fingers, pushes her chair out from the table, and points down beneath it. When Derek follows her finger, he spots a white and tan corgi dog chewing on a bone underneath the table, right next to where Stiles had been sitting, and he frowns at it. Slowly, the pieces come together for him. Cinnamon is a dog. That dog. Cinnamon is a corgi with a bone that Talia has promised to Derek's human. Which means Derek is in next to no position to say no, even though - “a _dog_.” 

“Yes, Derek.” She grins wider. “Stiles likes the dog.” 

Just from the look she's giving him, a smirk paired with raised eyebrows as if she's just _daring_ him to say no to Stiles this time, Derek is confident that she knows what she's done. She knows _exactly_ what she's fucking done. 

Derek absolutely fucking despises dogs. Especially the smaller ones. They bark, they chew things, they bark, they pee, they smell fucking horrible, they bark, they shed fur, and they _bark_. Talia knows this. She has watched with her own two eyes Derek growl and snarl at dogs to make them get out of whatever room he's occupying that they appear in. He just doesn't fucking like the things. They annoy. They take up space. Oh, no. This was an attack. This was no gift to Stiles, no fucking way. 

This is phase two of Derek's punishment : dumping him with a creature. 

Stiles claps his hands together and calls the thing's name, and immediately it's picking the bone up into its teeth and running over on stubby legs, its collar jingling along with it. Stiles crouches, picks it up to cradle in his arms, and then looks at Derek with big eyes. “He's kept me company.” 

Derek glares balefully into the thing's happy, clueless face, watches in disgust as it slobbers all over its bone and snuffles into Stiles' nice new clothes. Rubs its nasty fur and scent into Stiles' skin. He hates this thing already. He really does. He thinks for a moment about glowing his eyes at it to send it hopping out of Stiles' arms, skittering off to hide under a chair somewhere Stiles won't be able to find it so Derek can get out of having to take it home. 

As always, Stiles is perceptive. He reads Derek's expression, ups the bambi eyes up to level a thousand, and says, “please?” He holds onto the creature more tightly, as if he thinks Derek is going to take it away. 

_Absolutely not_ , Derek thinks, internally shaking his head. _No fucking way. No dogs. I will not have a damn dog in my house getting fur everywhere and smelling like ass and running the carpets and chewing on my shoes._

 

“Stiles, that thing is going to leap out the window and kill itself and you will be _very_. _Sorry_.” 

Rather than rolling the window up, Stiles just lets Cinnamon stick his head out, lolling his tongue and trying to bite at the air as they go. Stiles laughs hysterically, tears in his eyes, as if this is the funniest thing he's ever seen in his life. Jesus Christ. Maybe next time Stiles is getting worked up about something, he'll just set the human up in front of a youtube search of _funny dog videos_. That'll probably keep him occupied for hours. 

“Stiles. Window up.” 

With a last laugh, Stiles leans back in his seat, pulling the animal along with him, and rolls the window up. He reaches up to wipe at the tears in his eyes, still breathing heavily, and scratches behind his new pet's ears. 

“I'm not going to take care of that thing,” Derek promises with a bit of a bite. “I'm not going to. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't exist. It doesn't get on the bed -”

“ _It_ is a _he_ ,” Stiles corrects with a smirk, holding the dog up with his hands underneath its front legs, turning it so that it's facing Derek's direction. Derek glances at it, frowns, and turns pointedly back to the road. “And he wants to be your friend.” 

He starts leaning it over the center console, so that its paws almost touch Derek's arm, and Derek snarls. “Get that thing away from me.” 

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles puts on a voice, hiding his face in Cinnamon's fur. “ _Why don't you like me_?” 

“Stiles. I swear to God. I will pull over and leave it on the side of the road.” 

Stiles nudges Cinnamon forward so that one of his paws does touch Derek's arm, and Derek recoils at the feel of paw pads and fur scraping against his bare skin. _God_ he hates animals. “It doesn't go on the bed, Stiles.” 

“Ugh,” Stiles drops the dog back down into his lap, away from Derek, and rolls his eyes. “Fine. He can have his own bed.” 

Derek snorts. “I'm not spending the money on a bed for a dog. It can sleep on the floor.”

“He.” 

“ _He_ can sleep on the floor.” 

Either way, they wind up at Petco. Derek buys a leash, a food bowl, a dog bed, and a package of bones, all while feeling the eyes of a fucking turtle glaring in at his back from its tank across the aisle. Derek just – he just doesn't like _things_. Critters and the like. He's not afraid of them or anything (although the beady eyes of rodents do tend to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up), but he just doesn't fucking like them. If he had his way, there wouldn't be any damn animals. 

Stiles apparently doesn't have this problem. He presses his face against the glass of a tank for a snake, examines all the fish individually with huge eyes, and actually tries to climb up on top of the bunny cage to take the top off in order to reach in and grab at one of the babies. Luckily, a Petco employee steps in with a nervous laugh, eyeing Derek with a bit of a judgmental glare like _you don't leash your human_? 

In an entire store filled with nothing but actual honest to god animals and all the knick knacks and toys that come along with that, this kid is going to insinuate Stiles is the one that needs to have a leash. 

At home, Derek has to lug in three suitcases worth of new shit that Talia bought for Stiles while the human himself entertains the dog by throwing a bone across the yard and watching him run on his stubby legs to chase after it. Cue another round of hysterical laughter. 

As he's unpacking all the clothes (smooth like silk button downs, crisp v-necks, dark jeans), he finds out what Talia had meant when she had said toys. Because Derek hears that word and pictures, like, building blocks and little cars on wheels and big bouncing balls, he's a little bit surprised by what he finds. But, then, he really shouldn't have been, knowing his mother.

She bought the kid a laptop. It's still in its shiny packaging, untouched like he doesn't even know where to begin with it. Which makes sense, considering he still struggles with the home phone, sometimes – glaring at it through squinted eyes like the call button just doesn't make sense to him. The remote, he understands well enough, but mostly he only ever clicks the channel up or channel down buttons. And now he has a fucking laptop. What the literal hall is he going to do with this, _mom_? 

Nothing, seeing as how he hasn't touched it. Maybe Derek could try to teach him how to work electronics a little better. They have all the time in the world now, after all. 

Derek wishes that he could feel good about that, having all this time with Stiles now, when before he had thought that he had none left whatsoever. He wishes that he just could be happy, now. Isn't this what he wished for anyway? Isn't this what he wanted? Just to have Stiles with him?

It's not that easy, though. It's just not that simple. There are too many things to consider. The entire reason he's still here is because he couldn't go home to live with his father. The entire reason he's still here is because he has no place else to go. In the most literal sense, Derek is the only person he has in the entire world. 

Maybe Derek can tolerate that stupid fucking animal if it makes Stiles laugh, and takes his mind off of all the shitty things that have happened to him. It's the absolute least Derek could do in this situation. 

“How was it really over there?” Derek asks Stiles at dinner as he slices into his lasagna. Cinnamon is underneath _Derek's_ table now, perched at Stiles' feet and gnawing on one of his ridiculous bones. 

“That place is a torture chamber,” Stiles says darkly, wiping a smear of red sauce off his face. “She had an alarm clock set up in my room and it would chirp at me every morning at _seven am_.” 

Derek smirks at him. “Truly horrifying.” 

“And I really don't like your father,” he says in a low voice, shaking his head and glaring off into the distance as if remembering some really unpleasant memories. Derek is instantly alert, sitting up straighter and putting his fork down on his plate with a clink. 

He runs his napkin over his mouth and gives Stiles a serious look. “He didn't – do anything. Right?” 

Stiles scrunches his face up in distaste. “Aside from stare at me, no.” 

Of course he'd never do anything with Talia, there. Nothing like what he did that night at the restaurant. He wouldn't even put his hand on Stiles' shoulder with Talia watching him like a hawk; he's not so stupid to think that Talia isn't clued in to exactly what kind of shit he gets into behind her back, where exactly he goes, who he sees, who he sleeps with. That being said, he'd be a fucking idiot to do anything more than look at Stiles with Talia there. Maybe it's lucky that she's such a busy body. 

“Whatever,” Stiles says with a shrug, as if he's used to that kind of thing by now. “The point is, I hated it there, and I don't want to go back. Everyone -” he pauses, looking away for a second to sigh through his nose and lower his eyes. “...they all looked at me like I'm so fucking stupid. Your mom talks to me as if I smacked my head and have brain damage.” 

This isn't news. Derek has heard Stiles say that weres treat him like he's _stupid_ upwards of a million times, by now, and there's really no way to refute it. Even Talia, human rights activist, treats Stiles like he's stupid. Calls him stupid. Because that's genuinely what she thinks. She doesn't think he doesn't know how to use technology because he grew up in the woods and in a cage, she doesn't think he doesn't understand certain things because he never saw or heard of them before – she flat out believes he couldn't understand, even if he tried. 

“You're not stupid,” Derek assures him. And it sounds so ridiculous coming out, that he has to convince Stiles of this even though the human has creamed through Derek's entire book collection in the mere two months he's been living here. 

“Sometimes I think I know that,” he nods his head and pokes at the leftovers on his plate with his fork. “Other times – when people talk to me like that – I don't know.” 

A lifetime of being treated that way has to have some kind of psychological effect. Derek can really only imagine what it's like to know nothing aside from belittlement, no encouragement, no praise, just demoralization. At the same time, he really can't imagine it. Not at all. It's no wonder Stiles has some deep-seeded issues.

“You know -” Stiles starts after a pause, finally putting his fork down instead of playing with his food. “Talia was really upset about all those things that Kate Argent said on the television.” 

Derek frowns. He knew Talia had seen that, but he didn't know that Stiles had seen it, as well. Derek can only hope that Stiles and Talia weren't in the same room at the time, so Stiles didn't have to see the fucking hissy fit his mother most likely threw about that shit. 

“She said that Kate might have gotten the upperhand, now.” He looks at Derek pensively, pursing his lips together. “Is that – do you think...”

“I don't know,” Derek says without waiting for him to finish, because he knows exactly what he's going to ask, because Derek has been wondering the exact same thing himself. If it would be bad if Kate won, after all. Or, if it would be worse. At this point, either Kate or Talia winning would be bad, but at some point, a lesser of two evils has to be chosen. There was a time in his life where Derek knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Kate was always the worse of the two, her and all the Argents. 

But too much has happened, and he's seen too much. Now, he just doesn't know. 

“If Kate won, maybe – maybe they'd help the sanctuaries.” He sounds hopeful, if a little dejected at the same time.

“They'd only be helping so that those humans could get their populations back up,” Derek tells him quietly, almost apologetically. “Just so they could use them, Stiles. You know that.” 

Stiles nods slowly. “If Talia won, then she'd send them all back to starve.” 

Stalemate. Impasse. There doesn't seem to be any way under or above it. No matter what, the humans suffer. Stiles' father suffers. And, in turn, by association, Stiles suffers as well. Just knowing what's going on out there must be keeping him awake at night, must be giving him nightmares. He used to be able to imagine going back home to his humble little hut with a nice tree in the yard and having plenty of canned food to eat. Now, he just imagines ashes and shambles and gun powder. 

“I hate them.” Stiles fists his fingers into the hem of his shirt and grits his teeth. “I _hate_ them both.” 

Derek does as well. 

“Maybe you could talk to your mom,” Stiles tries, turning around in his seat to give Derek his full, undivided, intense attention. Sometimes, his eyes are all big and brown and innocent, and other times, they narrow down into something more grown up and adult, serious and cunning. Right now is definitely the latter. “You could tell her what you saw when we went there, and then she'd know that her ideas aren't going to work. Right? She could totally change her whole plan.” 

Even though Stiles was standing in the room when Derek tried to do exactly that, even though he heard Talia as good as say that she didn't give a shit about that, Stiles still thinks like that. Stiles still believes that just sitting Talia down and having a heart to heart about the reality of the situation, about how humans should really be treated, about what really needs to be done would work. It's so naive. 

Derek doesn't have the heart to tell Stiles that that would never, never work, that Talia is stubborn and deadset and is in too deep now to ever admit she might've been wrong, but he also doesn't have the heart to look into his eyes and say that the humans are just fucked, for this political term at least. So he clears his throat and nods. “Maybe.” 

Stiles stares at him. He traces his eyes over Derek's face, again and again, and then he slumps his shoulders and leans back into his chair. For a moment, there's only the sound of the clock in the living room ticking and Cinnamon chewing on his bone, while Stiles stares at his fidgeting fingers. “Do you think us getting married – do you think people will see that and – think humans can do things like that?” 

The question takes Derek by surprise. All the things Stiles and he have discussed at length, all the conversations they've had, they've never really talked about this. Not in detail. Not in specifics. Mostly, Derek tries to avoid the subject because it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He doesn't know why Stiles hasn't spoken about it, either, but he can guess that he doesn't particularly love the thought of it. 

“Do you think it'll change anything?” 

Derek sighs. “I think it might help my mother win.” Nothing more, nothing less. 

Stiles runs his fingers along the grooves of the wooden table they're sitting at, distracting himself, giving himself something to focus on. “It wouldn't be so bad, you know.” 

“What?” 

“Getting married to you.” He shrugs his shoulders, smiles a little bit to himself. “That wouldn't be so bad.”

Clearing his throat, feeling like a weight is being pushed onto his chest, Derek nods. “No, it – it wouldn't be so bad.” 

“The _you_ part. That's not so bad, at all,” he moves his eyes up so that his smile is focused directly on Derek, now, and they sweep across the wolf's face for a moment, before he looks down at his hands again, a blush creeping up his neck. “I get what marriage is, you know. No matter what Kate says, I – I get it. It's when you love someone enough that you're willing to stick around even when you don't so much.” 

It's a good a definition as any, really. Christ, look at Talia and her fucking husband. Even through everything, they're still fucking married, because in Talia's mind, that's just what you do. You stay married. Period. 

Even though they fucking hate each other. 

“I'm trying to say that the thought of being with you forever doesn't bother me at all. Not one bit.” 

Derek meets Stiles' eyes. Of course, Derek knew that being with Stiles forever wouldn't be a problem for him, and has known it for a little while now – he's been having fantasies about biting a claim into his neck after all, of course it doesn't fucking bother him – but that's...almost not the point. 

“...it's just that – I wish – I wish it could've been different.” 

Ah. And there it is. “Like in one of your alternate universes,” Derek supplies for him, eyebrows raising. 

Stiles smirks at him. “I want to be with you, Derek. I do. But – like this? Not like this.” 

_Not like this_. Not essentially just because Talia is forcing them to be together. Not just to be the means to an end. Not for everyone else. 

Just for them. Just because they want to be together. 

Do they really need an alternate fucking universe just to have that? Just to live together on their own terms? 

“I just wish we were different.” 

Derek hadn't known what it was about this whole thing that made him uncomfortable. Back at the beginning, it was that he was forcing some poor, abused human kid to be his husband even though they didn't know each other. But after everything, after realizing he loved Stiles and realizing that Stiles felt strongly about him as well, he couldn't quite place his finger on what, exactly, was so fucking horrible about the wedding now. If they cared about each other, and if they wanted to be together, then what was the issue?

Now, Derek gets it. His mother, and the public, and the cameras, and Kira and Isaac's stupid little gossip show – that's the fucking problem. It's not Stiles and it's not Derek, because none of this was ever either of their faults. 

It's not them that need to be different. It's nearly everyone and everything else. 

Upstairs in bed, the dog becomes a problem. Just like Derek knew it would. 

In spite of Stiles eyeballing him with that _give me what I want_ look, Derek sticks to his gums about the dog not sleeping on the fucking bed. There has to be a god damn line – some piece of Derek's life has to be free from dog hair, and by god, it's going to be his fucking bed. The place where he sleeps should be dog free at all times. Especially since the bed is the best spot for the mingling scent of Derek and Stiles together – the last thing he wants is Cinnamon smell ruining that. 

So, even though Stiles huffs about it and gives Derek a dirty look, they climb into bed and flick the lights off without the dog ruffling around through the covers. 

And then, the whining starts. 

Cinnamon's collar ting-tings, his paws shuffle on the carpeting around Stiles' side of the bed, and then there's the distinct thump of his legs hitting the side of the bed, like he's trying to climb up. Unfortunately for him, his legs are too stubby to manage it. Derek smiles to himself against the back of Stiles' neck, curling his arm tighter around the human's waist and feeling victorious. 

A second of silence, and then come the truly pitiful sounds of Cinnamon crying. He thumps his paws a few more times against the bed, cries, shuffles around like he's trying to find some way to climb up, cries, and Stiles flips over to face Derek in the dark. 

“This is inhumane,” he snaps, and Derek rolls his eyes. 

“Just leave him. He'll realize it's not happening and go to sleep in his own bed.” 

“He needs me,” Stiles says imperiously, as if this is serious stuff and not just a bickering match over a fucking dog. “I let him sleep in my bed while I was at Talia's – he's attached.” 

“The dog. Is not. Coming. Into this bed.” 

There's a pause. Cinnamon whines once more, burrowing his paws into the sheets and quilt hanging over the edge like he's trying to dig his way up. “Derek. You're being fucking stupid.” 

“Jesus Christ,” he flops back, away from Stiles' body, so he can lay on his back and glare up at the ceiling. He throws his hands in the air and snaps, “it's a dog! I can't have a dog in the bed, Stiles, that's the rule!” 

To emphasize a point, Cinnamon barks out a pitiful little whine, and that apparently is the final goodbye to the last of Stiles' will power. “You know what? _Fine_.” Abruptly, Stiles is ripping the covers off of himself, putting his feet down on the ground. Judging from the sound of the collar tinging, Derek can imagine Cinnamon is bounding around Stiles' feet excitedly right about now, basking in the attention of the human again. The thing is a menace.

“Hey,” Derek squints at Stiles' back. “What are you -”

“I'm going to sleep on the couch.” 

Derek sits up. “What.” 

“You heard me,” Stiles retorts as he bends down and scoops the dog into his arms. When he comes back up, he glares blearily in Derek's direction from the light spilling in from the windows. “No dog on the bed, no Stiles on the bed.” 

Even though Derek sits there and sees with his own eyes Stiles moving towards the door, he has to question it. “You're kidding me.” 

Stiles doesn't respond. He just keeps right on walking, flinging open the bedroom door and stalking out into the hallway. 

“ _Stiles_ ,” he calls after his retreating back, incredulous. “You're _kidding_ me!” 

He does wait for a cackle of a laugh, a _yeah I'm fucking with you_ – because Jesus Christ. Their first fucking fight? And it's over a dog? A stupid, idiotic, stubby-legged dog? 

None comes, though. Just the sound of Stiles' light footfalls treading down the hall, then down the steps, into the living room. Derek listens and hears the couch shift underneath Stiles' weight, followed by Stiles cooing at Cinnamon and unfolding one of the blankets Derek keeps on the back of the couch. He just sits there, blinking his eyes into the darkness in disbelief, while Stiles gets comfortable on the couch.

Jesus. He really wasn't fucking around. 

Silence finally descends upon the house. Stiles is completely still except for the occasional rustle, and his thumping heartbeat steadily pounding out – he's actually going to sleep down there. He's really that mad at Derek that he'd willfully banish himself to the couch because he doesn't want to sleep next to Derek, right now. 

Derek gets annoyed. He grumbles under his breath about _stupid dog_ , turns himself over, pulls the covers back up, and tries to fall asleep. He lies there for fifteen minutes, glaring at the wall across from the bed, stewing.

Until, finally, he sighs. There's just no fucking point to this. If Stiles really cares that much about the ridiculous dog that he'd act this way about it, then Derek might as well just get used to it. More likely than not, Stiles is stubborn enough to not just do this for one night. He could probably keep right on doing this until Derek finally gives in, and that is just a game that Derek really isn't in the fucking mood to play with Stiles. 

He's never tested it out, but he would bet that in The Stubborn Games, Stiles would win by a landslide, no matter how long Derek tried to keep it up. 

Derek pads down the hallway and down the stairs, and he knows that Stiles is still awake because he hears the human tense at his approach. Cinnamon sticks his head up over the back of the couch, ears alert as he watches the wolf, but Stiles lies on his side facing away from Derek, even when he comes to a stop right behind the couch. 

“Stiles,” Derek starts cautiously, somewhat bashfully. He cannot believe he's really doing this. 

“What?” Stiles snaps, sounding genuinely put out while also exhausted at the same time. 

Derek rubs at his eyes, gives Cinnamon one last glare, before he puffs out a breath and forces the words out. “If you want that dog in the bed so bad, then -” he rolls his eyes, asks God why, “...you can have him up there.” 

Stiles doesn't move for a moment. Long enough that Derek thinks he's going to keep up being mad just for the sake of being mad, which would drive Derek insane. 

Instead, Stiles finally sits up from the couch, rustling Cinnamon as he does so, and gives Derek a look. “You were being _such_ an ass.” 

Derek doesn't get why not wanting dog hair and slobber all over him while he's trying to cuddle with his fiancee makes him an ass, but figures that now is not the time to start up another argument, so he says nothing. Just stands back and watches while Stiles folds the blanket back up into a neat square, and then picks Cinnamon up and cradles him, almost pointedly, with a glare in Derek's direction. 

He starts walking back towards the stairs, and Derek starts following. 

“I don't get how you could stand to listen to that,” Stiles continues on in a clipped tone of voice, “and just, like, lie there while he cried.” Something about that sentence makes Derek skid to a stop in his bare feet on the hardwood, eliciting a screech from his skin rubbing against the floor. This alerts Stiles, who turns back with a perplexed expression on his face, scratching at Cinnamon's neck affectionately. He cocks his head to the side at Derek, and asks, “what?” 

It's just – he's said that exact thing before. He's said that exact thing about Stiles before, actually. When Stiles was locked down in that cage in the basement, after Derek had come and gotten him, he had wondered how that alpha-girl could've stood to just sit there upstairs while Stiles cried and begged to be let out – he had thought _who would do that? Who could stand that?_

There's an essential difference between animals and humans, and there's really an essential difference between Cinnamon the dog not being allowed up on the bed and throwing a tantrum about it, and Stiles being tormented in a dark, cold basement for hours on end. That's not the point. 

The point is that Derek has a revelation, then and there. Thanks to Cinnamon, he guesses. 

All this time he's spent convincing himself he's better than Talia, better than Kate, better than the wolf that kept Stiles in a cage, better than any wolf who owns a human and treats them like trash – it's all been a fucking waste of time, really. Because up to this point, he really hasn't been. 

He's been complacent. 

He let his mother pay for Stiles and take him away from the orphanage, he let his mother talk him into this marriage to begin with, he let all of this happen. Every single shitty thing that's happened to Stiles since the day he brought him back to this house has happened because Derek stood back and let it happen. All the while pretending like he was some hero, acting better than all the other wolves, sneering about _who could do that_? 

While he, himself, has been doing a variation of the same thing. Just sitting there while Stiles suffers, and doing next to nothing to stop it. 

Like Derek said before. It's not Stiles and Derek themselves that are the problem with everything that's happening – it's all the people around them, pushing them and controlling them and making them feel like they have no say in anything that are the problem. And if that's the case, and if Derek's fucking acceptance of all this is the issue, then maybe...

Maybe it's about time he stopped accepting it. 

He looks up into Stiles' eyes, all confused and innocent and maybe even a little nervous, and makes a decision. It's his dozenth decision in regards to Stiles, the hundredth thing he'll do in order to try and make things better. He doesn't stop to think about what Stiles might have to say about it - he just decides.

\----

As expected, Cinnamon is a nuisance to have in the bed. For starters, he reeks. Mostly like dog and fur and animal and dirt from in between his paws, and it drives Derek absolutely fucking nuts to have to lie there smelling more of that than of Stiles. Second of all, he wedges himself directly in between Derek and Stiles at some point during the night, spreading his short front legs out to stretch until his paws are resting in the space between Stiles and Derek's respective pillows. So, Stiles winds up cuddling with _him_ , his spindly fingers embedded into course fur, instead of with Derek. Which just – pisses him the hell off.

Last of all, Derek wakes up with fur inside his nostrils and sneezes for most of the morning. Stiles heckles at him mercilessly every time, while he sits at the table feeding the dog bits of bacon. Derek has to force himself not to drop the thing into a box and leave it on the side of the highway. 

Either way, Derek can't banish the dog from the bed. At least, not while Stiles is awake. The second he's asleep, Derek's going to plop Cinnamon down on the floor with his bone to keep him occupied and _away_. Him and all his god damn fur. 

When it comes time to go to the grocery store, Stiles gives the dog a sad look like he wishes he could take it with him – but Derek assures him about a zillion times it's not fucking normal or a good idea to drag a dog into a place where food is sold. He'll leap up on his stupid little legs and eat tomatoes right off the shelf, one by one. Derek would just rather not god damn deal with that. 

Probably the most normal thing about Stiles and Derek's relationship (because, really, what's normal about it? A human and a wolf forced into a political marriage? Jesus Christ,) is grocery shopping. It actually reminds Derek a lot of the idea of the _old married couple_ , in that it's just so domestic and plain and average and routine. Derek and Stiles might be incredibly close, but it's still only been barely three months that they've known each other. The only thing they have that really speaks to any kind of thought of this having been long term is the way they are about groceries. Of all things. 

Stiles prepares a list sitting at the kitchen table, scrawling along in his chicken scratch handwriting (that only he can read by the way – Derek has spent many a time alone in the store squinting at it with a frown trying to understand) while Derek combs through the cabinets and fridge, announcing things that they need more of. Stiles usually repeats everything back ( _cheddar cheese_ , cheddar cheese?, _cheddar cheese._ ) as he scrapes the pen along his paper. It's so fucking routine at this point, that when Derek replays Stiles' voice inside his own head, he hears the monotone of _milk_ or _eggs_ repeated back to him. 

The part that's not so routine is Stiles tagging along on the actual shopping bit. He's stayed home every other time, because Derek never wanted to bring him out to expose him to other wolves or both of them to the rumor and gossip mill. This time, though, Stiles had insisted. 

“I don't like staying at home all the time,” he said, rolling his eyes and gesturing dramatically. “If you and I are going to be – you know – us – then I should get out more. Be _normal_.” 

And who is Derek to deny Stiles of absolutely anything he wants? If he's willing to throw himself out there to the wolves just so he can feel like a normal member of whatever society they have going on around here, then fine. As long as Derek's there to supervise. 

So, he comes along. He crinkles the list between his fingers, maybe as an alternative to fidgeting as he gets leered at by one wolf after the other, while Derek pushes the cart along beside him. At first, it actually doesn't go that bad. It's incredibly obvious to Derek that Stiles is nervous, pent up and flicking his eyes this way and that every time a wolf walks past him, his shoulders gone tense, but he focuses intently on the list and reads the items off to Derek. It's much easier with Stiles here to read his own fucking writing. 

“Don't get that one,” Derek says at one point, when Stiles reaches out for the off brand cookies. “Get this one.” He grabs Chips Ahoy and drops them into the cart. Stiles blinks down at them, and then squints at the off brand again, tilting his head to the side.

“These are less money, though.” 

“They're not as good.” 

Stiles frowns at him. “They're the same thing.” 

“Except one is less money,” Derek explains a bit impatiently, already starting to push the cart along to the next aisle. “Which means it's not as good.” 

Stiles huffs out a breath like he still doesn't really get it, but walks along without another comment. It goes on like that for the next twenty minutes, with Stiles squinting at all the more expensive choices that Derek makes, shaking his head and huffing out sighs, raising his eyes to the ceiling – and Derek imagines that Stiles is thinking about all this money that Derek is dumping on luxuries like bottled water in a twenty-four pack, premium cuts of meat from the butcher, expensive cheeses. 

And he's most likely also thinking about his father and all those humans in the sanctuary, starving. All this food lined up and adorned nicely on shelves for anyone to walk in and buy, if they have the money, and the humans can't even fathom something like that. 

Derek sets his jaw and tries not to think about it. He has _that_ luxury as well. 

Because apparently the two of them can't really go anywhere without being accosted by someone, it really doesn't come as a surprise to him when a woman walks past them, double takes, and then freezes dead center in the middle of the aisle. Stiles is focused on his list, staring intently down at it and saying, “we forgot to get cream cheese!” in a tone of voice far too upset for the situation (as if the cream cheese has vanished from its spot and will never be seen again because they walked past it already), so he doesn't notice her.

Derek, however, does. He notices pointedly the way that she's staring with half her mouth curved into an amazed smile, as her eyes scan over the human again and again. It's recognition. Derek takes the time to assume that she just recognizes him from pictures on the television and magazines, and sets his jaw, rolling his eyes in annoyance. This is exactly what he was worried about. 

The woman flicks her eyes to Derek for a fraction of a second, and then decides he's uninteresting, looking back to Stiles. “Stanislaw?” 

That gives Derek some pause. He's seen Stiles' real, given name written out on his papers before, but it always says (“Stiles”) is his preferred name. So that's what Derek's always called him. He's never, never once, heard anyone, not even Stiles' father, call him that name. Some random werewolf who's seen him on television wouldn't know that fucking name. Derek is about to open his mouth to ask Stiles how he knows her, furrowing his brow and turning down to look at the human, but what he sees there surprises the ever living shit out of him. 

Stiles has shrunk. His shoulders have hunched in, his eyes have glued themselves down onto the floor of the aisle they're standing in, and he appears to be trying to make himself vanish behind Derek and the cart. To no avail, because her eyes just follow every single tiny little move he makes, an amused glint in her eyes, as though his panic is enjoyable to her. 

Stiles' heart is pounding, twice as fast as a human's normally does, and he's _shaking_. 

“I thought that was you.” She moves to step forward. Derek doesn't know who the fuck this person is, where the fuck she's come from, how she knows Stiles – all he knows is that Stiles literally meeps in fear with just one single step from her and dives for the shelf. Like he's seriously considering hiding in there. 

So, Derek reacts on principle. He holds his hand out in her direction, raises his eyebrows, and says, “stop.” 

She pauses, tilts her head to the side. She's holding a basket in one hand, dangling down along her side with a pack of turkey cold cuts and a loaf of bread. So fucking normal and nothing out of the ordinary – to Derek, there's literally nothing threatening about this person at all. She's made no moves to harm either of them, and she doesn't seem particularly angry or upset, like she's about to pounce on them. All the same, Derek follows the movement of her arm as she lifts a hand up to sweep her long hair out of her face, and that's when he notices it. 

There's a tattoo of a tiger, almost an exact carbon copy on a smaller scale of what Stiles has on his back, adorning the length of her forearm. 

Derek knows exactly who this person is, right then and there. Stiles' reaction suddenly makes perfect fucking sense. 

This is a nightmare figure, to him. Some distant memory he buries deep and represses day after day, while still haunted by it in the form of cowering whenever a wolf approaches him, of lowering his eyes when one speaks to him, of fidgeting his fingers whenever one gets too close. Of all the experiences Stiles has had as a human, the woman standing in front of him right now is responsible for almost all of the worst ones. The _torture_ he had referred to. 

Stiles had probably been banking on never seeing her again, but here she is. Smirking at them both. She's younger than Derek was imagining – because it just made sense in his head for her to have been older and curmudgeonly, one of the old school people who would do something like that to a human and feel no regret over it. But she's, at the oldest, late 20's. Which means she was young 20's when she had Stiles and – that just doesn't compute in his brain. 

She looks. So. _Normal_. 

With a grin, she looks right into Derek's eyes. “Sorry. I should've introduced myself first,” before approaching his _pet human_ without his consent, of course, she should've introduced herself first. She holds her hand out, and Derek can't help but glare at the tiger as it gets closer and closer to him. “My name is -”

Derek takes a step away from her, closer to where Stiles is trying to make himself disappear into a row of Lucky Charms, and shakes his head. He doesn't want to know what her name is. “I know who you are.” 

Unperturbed, she drops her hand and shrugs off the impolite slight. “I guess it is a little awkward,” and she says this so conversationally, “I just haven't seen him in so long.” 

Like he's a long lost friend or family member, someone she's been looking for or trying to find for years, now. Instead of a little human that she shucked off into an orphanage and most likely promptly forgot about in favor for whatever new pet she's got underneath her claws. 

Stiles crumples the list up in his fist, breathes deeply in and out through his nose. He still hasn't looked in her direction. Almost like he's afraid of what'll happen if he does, like he'll be _punished_ for it. 

“Obviously,” Derek begins in a very measured tone of voice, “he doesn't want to see you at all. You should walk away, now.” 

She smiles at him pleasantly, but Derek can see the cracks along the edges of her eyes that suggest hostility and cruelty. “He wasn't nearly so shy when he was _my_ human, Mr. Hale,” the way she drops his name suggests that she hates him, and hates the Hale name altogether. Everything it stands for. She leans forward, leering at the profile of Stiles' face, and snaps the fingers of her free hand twice in the air in his general direction. “Stanislaw,” she draws the syllables out all saccharine sweet, dripping with false affection, and Stiles entire body just – flinches. As if hearing that name in that voice from this person is flooding his brain with a thousand memories he's been trying to forget about, for years, now. “Why don't you say hi to me? You remember how we say hi, right?” 

Stiles points his eyes down at the ground and lasers them firmly, not daring to move them from the spot he's picked on the floor. Derek doesn't – he doesn't get this. The way that he's acting right now, the things that she's saying to him. It's confusing enough that for a moment all he can do is stand, blinking between the two of them in near bafflement. 

“ _Stanislaw_ ,” her voice goes firm, eliciting another shudder from Stiles. “Come on and give master a hug.” 

Wake up call. Derek shoves her fingers away from where they're reaching out for Stiles, latches onto one of Stiles' frail arms to drag him like a rag doll behind him, and snarls. She jerks back, a smile spreading across her face like she was just dying to get this reaction out of Derek, and now gets the satisfaction of watching him explode. “Fuck. Off.” 

She stands back to her full height, almost taller than Derek, and raises her eyebrows. “Fine, then. Rules are rules.” Derek shudders to fucking think of what the word _rules_ means to her, what that word means to Stiles in relation to her. “You should remember, though, I had him first,” she shifts her eyes over Derek's shoulder, to where Stiles is hiding. “It must drive you crazy to have to look at my tag on him. You remember when you got that, Stanislaw?” Her voice rises as she addresses him. “Remember how sweet you were to me, after? How you ate straight out of my hand, like a little -”

How Derek got from point A to point B, he doesn't remember. One second he's leaning back, crowding into Stiles' personal space to keep this werewolf as far away from Stiles as he can physically manage to keep her, and the next - 

The next, his clawed hand is wrapped around her throat and he's about to snap her neck. Right there in the middle of the fucking cereal aisle, while a mother and her three kids watch with dropped jaws. He used to fantasize about this, remember? Lying awake at night, thinking about what he would do to this piece of shit if he ever got his hands on her, if he ever managed to find out exactly who she was and where she lived – and it turns out, she lives right here. Right underneath Derek's nose this entire fucking time. 

It's like there's a haze over his eyes. He's really about to do it. He is seconds away from cracking every single bone in her body he can, again and again until the healing just won't take anymore, until she can't do anything and lie there and cry and fucking _beg_ for mercy like Stiles probably had to do again, and again, and again, his voice going hoarse. 

Just like she never did for him, Derek has no plans of listening. 

He's really, _really_ going to do it. He squeezes, hard, watches as she claws haplessly at his hand, watches as her eyes go wide and her mouth hangs open as she tries to pull in air, and Stiles – he just stands there. Derek isn't looking at him, but he's following every single move that he makes with his ears, and there's just...nothing. He's stock still. Mute. The only sound is his heart pounding. 

Seconds pass. Just seconds, and Derek thinks, _I am going to fucking rip this thing limb from fucking limb_ , and, anticlimactically, because they're in a grocery store, security shows up. 

While another werewolf hangs off of his hand by her neck, a pair of police officers that probably don't see action like this except for once every ten fucking years in their line of work (grocery store security? Gee wiz!), approach him with wide eyes. They say something like _we're going to have to ask you to leave._ Everything after that - talking himself out of an assault charge under the grounds of that woman trying to touch _his_ human, being told he wouldn't be welcomed back - is a blur. 

 

“I distinctly remember you saying,” Derek says as he jabs his key into the ignition out in the car, “she _wasn't so bad_.” 

They didn't even get to buy any of their food. They were banished indefinitely from the fucking grocery store because Derek tried to claw another were to death in front of a family of four and Tony the Tiger. His name will probably be put on some black list. Where the hell is he supposed to shop for groceries now? 

Stiles sits in the passenger seat with glazed eyes. He still has that ridiculous list balled up into his fist, the clench of which has yet to yield. He hasn't said a single fucking word since that first call of _Stanislaw_ , and he's barely even blinked since then, either. 

“Not so bad. That's what you said. A fucking understatement if I've ever heard it,” he clenches the steering wheel, glares out into the parking lot. As if hoping she'll be walking out of the store at any second so he can have a second go at it. “Jesus Christ, Stiles. Fucking _God_. I can't – I can't even – begin -” it was just...disturbing. On eighteen different levels. 

The way she looked at him, so hostile and menacing and just – cruel. And the voice she used to speak to him, that sweet-talk and that leer, and the things that she said. That word _master_. It gives Derek chills up his spine to think about it. To hear that voice in his own head. 

A part of him almost wants to know the kinds of things that she did to him. It wasn't beating him, or forcing herself on him, but it was – it was something. Enough to make Stiles petrified of her. 

For some reason, Derek convinces himself the thing to do to shake the shock out of his bones is to just keep talking – so that's what he does. He keeps on going, even though Stiles is clearly seconds away from just breaking into a thousand little pieces, he keeps talking. “I should've ripped her arms off and beat her with them. I should have – I should have said fuck off to security and ripped that bitch apart. Who _does_ that? Who could _do that_ to a kid? How do you get to the point where you convince yourself that a human deserves to be treated like -”

It comes out of nowhere. Absolutely fucking nowhere. 

Stiles punches the dashboard of the car. Slams his fist directly into it, as hard as he physically can, and Derek jumps in surprise. The stench of pain fills the tiny confines of the car, and Stiles throws his fist out again, pounding the plastic and leather like it's personally done something to him. Again. And again. There's nothing in his eyes, there. They just stare straight ahead, watching as his flesh collides with the dashboard, as blood starts to drip off his hand. It's almost like watching a robot. 

Derek finally gets his wits about him, says, “hey, _hey_!”, grabbing Stiles' wrist and holding it down. “What the -”

“ _I hate her_.” All the things Stiles has said, all the ways he's said them – Derek has never heard that voice before. “I _hate_ her. I fucking –“ he makes a sound from the back of his throat, something crossed between a scream and a growl, and clenches his teeth together. “I wish she were dead. I wish she would _die_.”

Well, Derek thinks, wide eyed. He did tried to poison her. And then went on to laugh about it. So, maybe this shouldn't surprise him as much as it does. But he's just – this isn't Stiles. This is not fucking Stiles in front of him, right now. Stiles doesn't act like this. Stiles doesn't say shit like this. This is someone else, someone Stiles used to be. 

The way he's panting between his teeth, the way he's twisting to try and get out of Derek's grip like he's going to try and beat the hell out of the dashboard again even though there's blood pouring from his abused knuckles...it's – it's almost like he's gone feral. 

A kid who's been put into a cage and tortured and starved. That's who's sitting in front of Derek, right now. This is as much a part of him as anything else is. This twisted, dark, hurt part of Stiles has been buried deep, repressed. Glimpses of it have surfaced up in the form of morose silences, listless stares, an attitude problem. 

But this is unfiltered. This is the entire thing, laid out on the table. Derek almost doesn't know what to do. 

“I was so sure I'd never see her again,” he's saying now, shaking his head fervently back and forth. “I convinced myself, I convinced myself, I thought she was gone, I can't believe – I can't – I can't -” he sucks in a deep, wet breath, his heart stuttering fast, too fast, too _fucking fast_ , and then he doesn't exhale. He chokes on it. 

“Stiles,” Derek prompts, letting go of his wrist to pat around his neck, his throat, trying to figure out why the fuck he's suddenly just not breathing right. “ _Stiles_.” 

Out the breath comes, finally, shaky and forced, and immediately another is following it. Just as tense, tight, awkward. Like he suddenly can't remember how to breathe normally. His eyes go listless, staring out into the parking lot, and Derek...doesn't know what to do. He's never seen this before. 

“Jesus Christ,” he snarls, throwing the driver's side door open and leaping out. He rounds the front of the car, rips open Stiles' door, and drops down onto his knees on the pavement as he reaches out to grab at Stiles' chin to force the human to face him. “Hey. Look at me. Look at me!” 

Stiles' eyes focus in on Derek's, barely, all wide with his pupils blown. 

“You hear me? Listen to me. Focus on my voice. The sound of my voice, and nothing else.” Stiles stares at him, breath panting hoarse and harsh. “I'm right here, Stiles, do you feel my hand?” He squeezes Stiles' chin. “I'm right here. Every thing is going to be fine, because I'm _right here_.” 

It takes minutes. Minutes of Derek repeating the same things again and again. Of other shoppers slowing down as they walk past the car and glare in at whatever the hell is going on with the nutty human. Of Stiles forcing his breaths in, and out, in, and out. Minutes until his heartbeat finally starts slowing down to something manageable, until his breaths just even out and turn smooth. 

Stiles has tears streaming down his face, but he doesn't pull away from Derek's hand, even after he's calmed, for the most part. He just sits there, crying, eyes vacant and unseeing. 

Derek wants to ask _what was that, what's going on, what are you doing, do you need medical attention, should I call Scott, what do I do_ , but all of that feels like things that are just going to make him go off the deep end again. So he just sits there and keeps his hands on the human, waiting. There's nothing else that he knows how to do. 

After a few minutes, Stiles swallows thickly. He parts his lips, and in a voice like gravel, he says, “it could have been worse.” 

It's a parroting of what he said the night that Stiles told him about her the first time, what he said after _she wasn't so bad_. He's responding to something Derek fucking said fifteen minutes ago, and Derek doesn't know if he just blacked every thing out for a while, or what's happened. 

“It could have been worse. It could have been worse. It could have -” he squeezes his eyes shut, pants out a breath and shakes his head around Derek's fingers. Trying to convince himself that he's been lucky, his entire life, because maybe he was never fucking raped and maybe he was never beaten day in and day out. He's one of the lucky ones. He's _here_ instead of dead. This is his mantra. This is what he repeats to himself when the nightmares come at night, that it could have been – it could have been this, and it could have been that, and thank God it wasn't. Thank God it was just that. Thank God she just tormented him psychologically and nothing else, thank God it was just the cage and not something worse. 

Thank God he's just being forced to marry Derek Hale and not something worse. 

And that's it. That is fucking it. 

Derek decides right then and there, kneeling on concrete in the middle of a parking lot, listening to Stiles cry and repeat the same thing again and again, that that's it. This has been building for too long, and too much has happened, and at some point, enough is enough. 

“We're leaving,” Derek says definitively, even though Stiles might be too far gone to really understand it, right now. “We're not staying here, Stiles. I'm going to take you away. From all of this.” From every single last wolf who's ever looked at him wrong, ever even thought about him wrong, Derek is going to take him. That's it. That's the only option he has. 

He knows that by deciding this, by choosing this out of the myriad of choices he might have had if he were willing to make unselfish sacrificies for everyone else, that he's doing something to fuck other people over. His mother, definitely. Once she finds out Derek's gone and fucking vanished with her paid-for human a week and a half before he was due to be married, she will – Christ. Derek doesn’t' want to know. Hopefully he never will. 

And, maybe, Kate will win. Maybe Cora will take the brunt of the aftermath just because she's there to take it, and maybe Talia will win and definitely, no matter what fucking happens, humans will suffer. Until someone does something about it. 

The fact of the matter is, fuck his mother. Literally, fuck her, and fuck anyone else who thinks they have a say in what Stiles does or doesn't do. For once, the universe owes Stiles something. Derek's the one with the power to take him away or leave him. Derek's the one who's had Stiles on a leash this entire time, with the option to draw it taut or unhook it altogether, and he's been choosing the former far, far too often. 

It's just time for it to be done. It's time to sink the fucking ship.

\----

Stiles hugs his arms over his chest from his place in the doorway, staring placidly into Derek's library, where Derek has planted himself on the couch. He blinks for a moment or two, just watching. Examining the entire scene. Derek lounging back, a tumbler of wolfsbane clinking around in his hand, the dog parked in the corner sleeping and twitching its ears.

Derek hasn't seen Stiles for a couple of hours. Not since they came home and Derek deposited Stiles into bed after wrapping up his fucked up knuckles to get some sleep or – just to lie there, if he wanted to. He did just lie there. Derek never heard his breath even out into sleep. He's been spending a lot of time listening to make sure he didn't have another attack. They haven't said anything to each other since Derek said they were going to leave, and now Stiles is just standing there, staring at him. Derek doesn't know what to say. What's there left to say? 

Stiles points a long finger at Derek's hand. “Are you drunk?” 

With a snort, Derek shakes his head. “Not yet, Stiles.” 

“Are you going to be?” 

“With any luck,” Derek takes another sip, “yes.” 

He steps inside, almost hesitantly, and then narrows his eyes. His next few steps towards the couch are more confident, sure. “Don't,” he commands gently, right as he's pulling himself up onto the couch. He spreads his legs out over Derek's lap, so his feet press into the pillow on Derek's other side and his knees are perched upwards for Derek to drape his arm over, and then he tugs the glass out of Derek's hand. “Talk to me. I want to talk to you.” 

Derek watches him deposit the glass on the coffee table in front of the couch, and nods his head. A night wasting away in his own sorrows sounds absolutely fun and great, really, but now Stiles is here. And Stiles wants to talk. “Okay.”

Stiles leans his chin onto one of his upturned knees, breathes out from his nose. “That was – at the store, I was -”

“You weren't anything,” Derek cuts him off before he can go on to blame himself for whatever happened back there. “You're not anything, Stiles. Nothing bad. That was all her, and you know it, and there's no blame on anyone else.” Except maybe Derek, for getting them thrown out and banned for life. But now, maybe it doesn't matter anymore. 

Stiles doesn't say anything back to that. He just stares blankly at the wall across from them, a frown on his face. 

Derek drums his fingers gently on Stiles' back. “Do you want to talk about it?” He pauses, gauging the reaction before he continues. “About her?” 

There's not much of a reaction. Derek had been expecting maybe anger, or another attack, or something. But Stiles just blinks and tightens his jaw, his brow furrowing as he glares out at nothing. 

“Obviously you've never been completely upfront with me about that,” Derek says quietly, running his fingers in a calming gesture along Stiles' skin. “That's – you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. That's fine.” 

Stiles leans back into Derek's touch, and nods his head. “You got the idea.” 

Maybe Derek just doesn't have that great of an imagination – maybe he's not nearly cruel enough to even begin to come up with the kinds of things that must have went on in that house during the time that Stiles spent with that wolf. Because he doesn't get the idea, not at all. It's probably better off that way. It's probably better off if he never knows the specifics. 

Some demons are better left kept in the shadows. Some nightmares just can't be spoken out loud. 

“You know -” Derek starts, moving his hand onto Stiles' arm to drag blunt nails up and along the skin, there, making Stiles shiver. “...I'm never going to let her near you, ever. I'm never going to let anyone who would hurt you even think about getting close. You know that, right?” 

Stiles lifts his eyes and looks directly into Derek's – perhaps so that Derek will know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the words he's about to say are as true as he can make them. “I know that.” 

Then, so long as he knows that, nothing else much matters to Derek. 

Stiles plays with the bandages wrapped around his fingers and knuckles, puckers his lips at them like he really wants to tear them off because they itch or something along those lines. It's a good thing Derek had predicted Stiles getting hurt at some point and bought himself a human injury kit – filled with things Derek doesn't know the first thing about, of course. But he's learning. 

After another few moments of silence, Stiles pipes up again. “You said we were going to leave.” 

Derek nods his head. “We are, Stiles.” 

Like he doesn't quite believe him, like it sounds too good to be true, Stiles scrutinizes him. “Where would we even go?” 

He feels his lips quirk up at the corners. “An alternate universe, Stiles.” 

Stiles gives him a look. “You _are_ drunk.” He starts moving to climb off of Derek's lap, like he's so annoyed and put out, but Derek catches him and shakes his head, laughing lightly. 

“I'm not.” He's not. Stiles is the lightweight in this conversation. “I didn't mean literally. I meant – figuratively.” 

Stiles side-eyes him. Says nothing. 

“Someplace where you and I can be together because we want to be,” he explains, not letting go of Stiles' arms. “Away from anyone who would try to hurt you. Right?” To Stiles, that _is_ an alternate universe. 

More likely than not, he can't even conceptualize that. So it makes sense that he looks so wary about it, unsure. “Where, though?” 

Derek drops his neck onto the back of the couch and breathes out through his mouth. “It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. Just somewhere my mother won't be able to make you do anything. Or take you away whenever she feels like it.” They could go to fucking Tahiti for all Derek really gives a shit. 

“You haven't thought about this at all.” Stiles' voice sounds very small. “You're – you haven't really thought about this, Derek. You haven't thought this through.” 

“Yes, I have,” Derek defends, a twinge of annoyance in his voice. “Of course I've _thought_ about this, Stiles, I've thought about it every single time something's happened to you out here, I've _been_ thinking about it, and I know that this is the right thing to -”

“Yet you haven't even asked _me_ what I want or what I think.”

Derek lifts his head up to find Stiles staring at him with a frown, his brow furrowed. He looks angry, in a way that he hasn't really looked at Derek since they first met each other. Like they're strangers, all over again. 

Maybe he has a god-given right to be angry at Derek, this time – because he makes a point. Derek didn't ever ask Stiles if he wanted to leave, or what he wanted to do. He just instantly assumed that he knew what would be best, what the right course of action would be, without ever factoring in Stiles' opinion on the matter. Truthfully, he had automatically assumed it would be the exact same as Derek's. “I – don't you want to get out of here? You told me you didn't want – you said _not like this_.” 

Stiles' jaw twitches. “I never said I wanted to run away.” 

Not knowing what else to say, Derek quietly murmurs, “you _should_ want to.” 

For whatever reason, this makes Stiles bristle like a porcupine taunted. He huffs out an indignant breath, and shakes his head, like he cannot believe Derek just fucking said that. “Since when do you get to decide what I should or shouldn't want -”

“I didn't mean it like -”

“When I said that I wanted to go back home,” Stiles interrupts in a loud tone of voice, shifting his eyes away from Derek to stare pointedly at a spot on the ceiling, “I thought that I would be going back to a place where things would be okay. I thought I'd be going back with my dad, and I thought every thing would be better there, and I thought – I thought -” he throws his hands up, makes a growling noise. “I thought that there were still places out there for me. For people like me.” 

Derek swallows, stares at Stiles' face, feels his heart beating.

“...there isn't. There just isn't. Not here, not out there. Not anywhere you could take me. I don't belong anywhere except locked up.” 

“You _don't_ belong locked up, that's what I'm trying to do! I'm _trying_ to let you finally fucking be your own person!” 

“Listen to me,” Stiles twists his body in Derek's lap, flailing his legs around until he manages to drop his knees on either side of Derek's thighs, until he grabs onto Derek's face with his fingers and squeezes, forcing the wolf to look directly into his wide eyes. “I'm a prisoner. I was a prisoner there, I'm a prisoner here. You can't change that.” 

Derek breathes deeply through is nose, shakes his head around Stiles' fingers. “Yes, I can. I can, Stiles, I can -” he can what? Suddenly, his tongue feels like lead, and words won't come out. 

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles' eyes fill with tears, and he looks at Derek with an expression that there just aren't words for. It's so sad, and almost sorry, apologetic. It's a look that Derek has probably given Stiles upwards of a thousand times, by now, and to have it pointed right back at him – it makes him feel small. Insignificant. “You can't. You've convinced yourself that there's any hope in any of this, when the truth is, there's not. Okay? There's nothing out there for me, except for you, you're the only thing I have, and I know, I know you're _trying_ , but – just – enough.” 

Derek moves like he's going to open his mouth, start speaking again – start saying how it's _not_ enough. It's not done yet, they can still do this. They can still fucking do this. Christ, there has to be a way, there has to be somewhere, and there has to be a choice that's just better than the rest. There has to be. 

But, Stiles presses his forehead against Derek's, breathes, inhales the exact same air that Derek does. “There's _nothing_. You can do.” 

Crumbling. That's the feeling that Derek gets, hearing those words. Like a building collapsing in on itself, an entire skyscraper going up in flames, as Derek lets out a breath he might've been holding for months. Might've been holding since he broke Stiles' finger all that time ago. 

“I'm never going to be anything except _trapped_.”

All this time, Derek has thought he was taking steps forward. In his mind, he had been envisioning himself swimming away. Every choice he made, he thought he was getting farther away from the wreck, distancing both he and Stiles until hopefully they wouldn't even see it any longer. Too far off in the distance to make out the ship as it capsized, too far off to care. He thought that by giving Stiles food, protecting him from wolves like his father and Kate and his owner, trying to take him back home, by doing all of this, he was making some kind of a difference, in the long run. 

To hear, now, that none of it has mattered? That nothing Derek does is ever going to be good enough? That they could run to the opposite end of the earth, they could disappear, but it wouldn't ever be enough. 

It will always, always, be an _almost_. An _at least_. An _it could be worse_. 

“You can't change the world,” Stiles presses his lips against Derek's, just for a second, while running his fingers along the sides of his face. “You can't do that for me.” 

Derek can't do anything for Stiles. The knowledge, so sudden, is paralyzing. “I want to,” he says, fisting his hand into Stiles' shirt. “ _Jesus_ , I want to.” More than anything, more than he's ever wanted anything in this universe, he wants to make this place, this world, better for Stiles. He wants to jump ship, swim to another, but he knows. 

He knows that that one'll sink too, eventually. Stiles has known this entire time, because, really, he's just leaped from one shipwreck to the next. From the sanctuary that wasn't ever okay even when it was to him, to the factory, to his owner, to the orphanage, to here. 

Stiles has been drowning his entire life, and Derek really and honestly thought he was going to be the one to pull him up, finally. If they tried to run, it would fall through. Everything for Stiles falls through, because of how he was born. There's nothing Derek can do about that. 

Derek feels like throwing up, or punching something, or just not existing, anymore, pushing the pause button on everything so he can have five fucking seconds to process his failures, one after the other. He just needs a minute to accept, and then from there – from there – God, he doesn't know anymore. 

There's only so many times he can survive the impact. 

Stiles is there, and Stiles kisses him again, presses his body as tight up against Derek's as he can, as though he can just sense that Derek is going through something, right now. “I know,” he says. “I know, I love you, I know.” 

_I love you_. The words ring around inside of Derek's head, jerky and all encompassing, and it's all he can do to echo them back. 

Between the two of them, that's all they have. All they have is _I love you_ and how much that's worth, Derek isn't sure. 

“Me and you,” Stiles says, like he's promising something. “We can do this. I can marry you, and I can show everyone that I'm – I'm not nothing. I'm not just something for wolves to do whatever they want with, I'm my own person, and I love you and I – I choose you.” He moves his fingers to pick Derek's face up, to stroke his thumbs along his jawline. “I choose you. Do you understand me? That's my decision to make.” 

“Stiles,” Derek hisses between his teeth, meeting his eyes dead on and trying to find purchase in them. “What are we going to _do_?” About the humans. About Stiles himself. About Talia. About Kate. About anything. 

“I won't run,” Stiles says emphatically with a slight nod of his head. “It would be wrong. I can't abandon everyone else just for myself, I – I can't, Derek.” 

Derek could. Derek could without hesitation take Stiles and vanish. All just to get what he wants. The fact that Stiles couldn't do that, the fact that he believes so fucking firmly that by marrying Derek, he'll be doing something good for _someone_ , that he'll be helping things get better – it's just proof that Stiles has been, and will most likely always be, a better person than Derek. Than any of the wolves. 

The wolves sit around on their thrones and their high horses, looking down their noses at the humans, as if they're so insignificant and useless. Yet, here's Stiles. And Stiles is willing to give everything up, his father and his home and his agency, if it meant someone else might get a little to themselves. 

It takes everything in him to let go of the idea of taking his human and running, but he uncurls his fingers from his resolve, and gives in.

“I'm not scared,” Stiles says. “I'm not scared of what they're going to do to me, or what they're going to say about me. Not anymore.”

Derek never would have been able to do anything. His mother never would have let him do anything. There's just something he had never considered, never once throughout the time he's spent with Stiles did the thought cross his mind, but it seems so obvious now, that he almost can't believe he's been so blind throughout this entire ordeal. 

Stiles can do something. Stiles is the poster-boy, the symbol that his mother has spent so long raising up on banners. Derek didn't know it at the time, and neither did the humans, but when they repeated the name _Hale_ the way believers repeat _Christ_ , they didn't mean Talia. And they didn't mean Derek. 

“I'm not going to hide from Kate Argent, or Talia, or anyone,” he raises his chin in the air, narrows his eyes defiantly. “Not anymore.” 

All this time, Derek has been forcing Stiles to try and run. Even when there was nowhere to go. Of course, he had wanted to go home, and of course he wanted to get away from the wolves – but then he realized that home was taken away from him. Home was stolen. Home was handed to him on a silver platter as a woman who tormented him, and an orphanage that didn't care about him, and a person who was going to use him for her own selfish gains. Home isn't safety, to Stiles, it's just confinement. Before, he was sad, and petrified, walking on egg shells and hoping to make it out to the other side. 

Now, he's angry, and has the bandages wrapped around his hand to prove it. What he's going to do with all of that, who he's going to become with so much resolve and hatred and hurt – an entire lifetime of transgressions and wrongs to pick and choose from for his arsenal – Derek is nearly afraid to find out. 

“You want to stay,” Derek croaks. “You want to – you want to marry me for the papers.” 

Stiles' lips curl into a grim smile, and he shakes his head from side to side. “I want to marry you because I love you enough to stick around even when I don't so much.” He shrugs, like it's all so nonchalant, right now. “And I know we'll be okay, in the end.”

Everything else might stay fucked up, and everything Stiles and Derek try to do to steer Talia in a better direction if she winds up winning might fall through spectacularly – but here's one last _at least_.

“I love you,” Derek says again, as much emphasis as possible. Because he does. He fucking _loves_ this brave, torn apart, fragile person in front of him, in his arms, and he's willing to sink just because Stiles will be right there beside him on the way down. 

Stiles smiles at him, his eyes still red-rimmed with tears, and cocks his head to the side. “I want you to do something for me, then.” 

“Anything,” Derek says immediately, fixing his hands onto the human's slim hips and gently squeezing. “I'll do anything for you.” 

For a moment, Stiles just looks up at Derek through his lashes, dropping his hands away from Derek's face to instead rest on his shoulders. He doesn't seem bashful or shy, but he seems like he's been thinking about whatever it is he's about to say a lot, churning it around the way he did the kissing and the sex, so Derek half expects something along those lines to come tumbling out of his mouth, again. 

Instead, Stiles tilts his head further, until his neck is there, _right there_ , Derek's eyes sweeping up and down the pale skin. “I want you to bite me.” 

Derek just – _shit_. “What.” 

“Bite me,” Stiles says again, not a question, but a demand. “I want you to do it.” 

Derek's reaction is pretty much instantaneous. “You have no idea what you're asking for. No.” 

“I know what I'm asking for,” he's eerily calm, as though he expected this. “I know what it is. It's a mark.” 

“It's a _claim_ ,” Derek corrects hotly, shaking his head. “It's – ownership. It's a wolf marking its territory, and that's not mine to take.” 

Stiles leans in, so that as he speaks his lips brush over Derek's just slightly. “I'm offering it.” 

It's hot, too hot, too fucking much, and his blood is pounding in his ears as the wolf howls inside of his head at the sheer thought of it, at the idea of snapping its teeth into Stiles' neck and finally taking what it thinks belongs to him. “I can't – it's just like – I can't -”

“I have these marks all over me -” Stiles snaps, and Derek thinks about his owner's voice at the store, the way she had said that so proudly like she had some piece of Stiles, still, “and I hate them. I can't – I don't fucking belong to any of them, and they marked me like I did, but I'm not anyone's.” He raises his eyes again, looks so fucking serious and sure. “Except yours.” 

Derek whines. It's what he's wanted, but he can't shake the feeling that there's something inherently _wrong_ with it. Too long, he's spent, working to prove that Stiles is his own person, that it's hard to reconcile that with the desire to take. 

“I want you to have it,” Stiles insists like he's reading Derek's mind loud and clear, that perceptive brain of his working faster than Derek can keep up with it. “I want you to have all of it. Come on,” he tilts his neck again, lowering his eyes so his lashes rest against his cheeks, “do it.” 

Derek breathes. He breathes, in and out, watches and listens as Stiles throat moves with his own breathing, watches blood flow, there, imagines what that blood would taste like on his tongue. Imagines how Stiles would look with those scars, and it wouldn't just be adding another to the rest. It would be like erasing all of the others, stamping his own over on top of them, eradicating everything else that any other wolf has ever done to him to try and keep him for themselves. 

This is it, Derek decides. If he bites Stiles, claims him, then there'll be nothing anyone else can do about it. 

There'll be nothing Derek can do about it, either. Stiles will be it. For the rest of his life. 

Stiles smiles at him, opening his eyes again to watch. And when Derek wolfs out, lets the change come over his face, the claws slide out, Stiles doesn't flinch away from him. He doesn't become terrified like he had when Lydia had done the same to him, his heartbeat doesn't speed up, he isn't scared at all. He smiles wider. 

“Hold still,” Derek tells him in a growl, reaching his hand out to tangle his fingers in Stiles' hair, to keep him steadily in place. “Don't. Move.” 

Stiles swallows, and Derek watches his adam's apple bob up and down. But he makes absolutely no moves to pull away – stays stock still and silent, waiting. 

Derek leans forward, opens his mouth, thinks, _gentle, gentle, gentle_ , as if he's coaxing the wolf inside of himself to understand that word, right now. One wrong move, and Derek could bite Stiles' throat clean out of his neck, but for some reason, he's sure that he's not going to do that. He's positive he's not going to lose control, and maybe it's something in Stiles' aura. That confidence he has. The faith and trust he's putting into Derek to not hurt him. 

Derek bites. His teeth sink into flesh so smoothly, so _easily_ , the skin so fucking fragile and delicate – it's just the surface. As deep as Derek is willing to let himself go, deep enough to scar, but not deep enough to _ruin_. Stiles meeps, his body going tight with tension the way pain tends to make the body do, but quickly relaxes after a moment – sighing through his nose and murmuring, “it's okay,” like he's trying to placate Derek. 

It is okay. It's beyond okay. It's everything. 

The second it's done, the second the marks are there – Derek feels it. The change. He pulls away, rips his teeth out with an accompanying gasp from Stiles, and examines the blood as it drops down Stiles' collarbones, into his shirt, disappears to stain. Looking at his mark there, finally, he feels different. The entire situation feels different. Stiles feels different. 

All of it better. Scarier, maybe, but better. 

“Ouch,” Stiles half laughs, trying to crane his neck and chin downwards to look at it. “Ow. Yup. That hurts.” 

“Sorry,” Derek whispers, preoccupied with running his hands up and down Stiles' sides. “Sorry, sorry -”

“Shut up,” Stiles snorts, rolling his eyes. “I like it. The mark. The pain, I'm not wild about,” he runs his finger through some of the blood and grimaces. “I like having you on me, though.” 

And that's what it is. Derek is going to be on Stiles, for the rest of his life. The mark will pucker over, fade into scar tissue, but it'll stay the same way that tattoo will stay – better, even. 

That's forever. 

“Me and you,” Stiles repeats his words from earlier, though they sound different, now. More important. “No matter what. Promise me.” 

“I just did.” Anything could happen. Everything could go wrong, horribly wrong, and Kate might win, and they might try to take Stiles away – Derek just won't let them.

If they try to take Stiles away from him, he'll kill them first. If his mother ever tries it, he wouldn't hesitate to kill her, too. No one is ever going to put their hands on Stiles to control him ever again, not while Derek is still alive and breathing and here. 

The surety of this is a weight off his shoulders. An anchor being pulled up out of the ocean to let Derek go, for the first time in months. 

It's freedom, to him. Stiles is freedom.

\----

Talia winds up winning. Landslide.

It's unclear how much of it has to do with the wedding pictures – the ones with Stiles in a dress shirt that doesn't cover his mark, where he's making these eyes at Derek as if he just put all the stars in the sky just for him, where he's smiling so huge it nearly jumps out of the photograph at the observer. There are even some with the fucking dog, because Stiles had insisted that the god damn _dog_ come along to their wedding. This _happened_. There was just no saying no to him. The thing had a front fucking row seat at the ceremony, had a place card and a seat during the after party, and got a plate of five star steak to eat while getting his ears scratched at. It was like something out of Derek's nightmares. 

Stiles hoisted the dog up into his arms, nudged Derek in the side as he smiled for the cameras and Talia stood back in her gown downing champagne glass after champagne glass, and said, “it's like a family photo!” 

The photographers laughed, Derek daydreamed about sending the dog away to a farm, and Stiles beamed. It's the first time Derek had ever seen Stiles so _himself_ around so many other werewolves, and so he couldn't complain. He let the dog get fur all over his and Stiles' nice suits. He bought a hundred pack of lint rollers at Costco, anyway. 

The point is, it was really hard to believe Derek as some demon dragging Stiles into a forced mating and marriage like Kate wanted everyone to think when those pictures came out. There was just no way to see it like that. If nothing else, even if the situation itself was fucked up beyond all belief, more than anyone could imagine, it was just how Derek and Stiles were with each other. It was crystal clear to anyone who was looking, to anyone who took even the briefest of glances at them, that it was real. Fake as it may have started, as ill-intentioned as his mother may have been, that almost didn't matter anymore. 

It was easy to forget. Even though Talia ordered a cake that Stiles scrunched his nose up at and didn't take a single bite of and even though Lydia spent the entire night squawking at Stiles to _sit up straight, chew with your mouth closed, for God's sake put your napkin in your lap_ , there was just a certain glow. A knowledge that Stiles and Derek were doing exactly what they wanted. That them, together, is all they really needed, for that one day. 

Erica - as Derek's best (wo)man – gave a long winded toast about commitment and _I never thought Derek would find anyone_ , and then started crying halfway through, inconsolable, and Boyd had to come up and drag her away from the microphone, and that about did it for the speeches. Swear to God, if Cinnamon could talk, Stiles would've had him propped in front of a microphone to yip about bones for half an hour. 

Maybe the only genuinely shitty part of the day were these small moments. Stiles looking around himself and seeing mostly strangers, wishing that he could've invited Scott without Talia throwing an absolute temper tantrum.

Wishing that his father could've been there to see this. His mother, as well. But like Stiles has said himself - no one gets everything. 

Cora got really drunk and kissed Stiles on the cheek about a half dozen times, Talia kept grabbing Stiles by the back of the neck gently to stop him from hunching over the table, and everything else was just background noise. 

All the time Derek had spent fighting it, trying to escape from it, and it wound up being the best day of his entire life. People caught onto that. 

But, no. It wasn't clear if that's why Talia won. Does it matter? 

Derek knew that essentially, no matter who won, Stiles would be upset. It was a little more than surprising to him when the news dropped, while standing around at the Hale house in front of the huge television in the living room waiting to hear the results, and everyone around them cheered and balloons fell from the ceiling, that Stiles hardly reacted. 

He took a sip of his drink, clinked his ring against the glass again and again like he was thinking, and didn't say a word. What was going through his mind, Derek could've only imagined. 

“That means something,” he had said later that same night, back at home while he unfurled himself from the outfit Lydia had put him in for the occasion. “It means something.” 

Derek grunted. He had a lot to drink. 

“I'm looking at the glass half full,” he started to pace, two of him going back and forth across the carpeting while Derek watched the ceiling spin and Cinnamon snuffled at his face. “If Kate had won, that would mean the majority of people hate humans. Right?” 

“Bed,” Derek huffed. “Get in bed.” 

Stiles, unperturbed, picked up the waste basket from the corner of the room it usually resides in and brought it over to Derek's side of the bed, dropping it down right there so Derek has someplace to throw up if need be. “The fact that Talia won just suggests that – well – _proves_ – that there's sympathy.” 

“ _Sleep_.” 

“Sympathy can be molded. That's the glass half full angle.” 

“All my glasses are empty,” Derek muttered, and Stiles ran his long fingers through his hair. 

“I'm having a revelation, and you're ruining it. We should do something,” he got that determined voice, that particular set to his eyes, and Derek started falling asleep.

“C'mere,” he held his hand out up in the air in Stiles' general direction, making grabby gestures without even opening his eyes. When he felt Stiles' skin brush up against his fingers, he clamped down and pulled the human into bed with him. Stiles' breath huffed against his ear and his body collided against Derek's side, so Derek wrapped his arm around him blearily. “Tomorrow.” 

“I just think -”

“You're always thinking.” Constantly, on a loop, thoughts tangling up inside his head while those long fingers of his work to unfurl them without ever stopping. “Sleep, now.” 

“I'm not tired.” He pulled a bit away from Derek's embrace to lay on his back, and Derek sighed. “I just – I'm just thinking. When do you think Talia is going to start – you know.” Taking humans out of orphanages to send them back to their families, even if they have none left. Taking humans out of the houses of wolves if they're found _unfit_ or abusive. What the criteria for that is, Derek isn't sure. 

“She'll start with the Argents,” Derek's voice was petering out into a sleep drawl, as he felt like he was falling even though he just laid there. Puking was eminent. 

For a moment, Stiles went quiet. Though he never stays quiet for long. “I'd like to do something.” 

“You were the one,” Derek popped his eyes open, squinted against the seemingly bright light from the bedside lamp, “who said _you can't do anything_.” 

“I said _you_ can't do anything for _me_ ,” he corrected mildly without any venom. 

What that meant, Derek didn't really feel like thinking about. In the coming months, he'd learn.

\----

Stiles Hale has never been on an airplane before.

He eyeballs the private jet from where they're standing on the tarmac as if it's a giant, personal tomb, made just for him, holding onto Cinnamon like a giant teddy bear, and for ten minutes, he refuses to board. 

"I'm not doing it," he says emphatically. "I want to drive." 

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. "You can't drive to Europe," he snaps irritably - because he's only said the exact same thing a hundred times, now, and for Christ's sake, Stiles is too fucking smart to think a person could _drive_ to Europe from the United States. "It's just an airplane, Stiles." 

Stiles pinches his lips together, shakes his head. Mind made up. "It's a flying death trap." 

"You were the one," he starts in a smooth voice, while ten feet away Talia taps a high heeled foot impatiently and points at her wrist where an imaginary watch is resting, "who wanted to do this to begin with. You practically forced my mother's hand." 

And he really, really did. 

In his time as a quote unquote "free human", Stiles has done a lot of things that other weres view as disrespectful, rebellious, uncouth. But out of all of them, the most grand display of disrespect Stiles has ever put out, is when he, on _live television_ with a fucking microphone in his face, said - 

"If Talia follows through with her _rescue plan_ -" the words spat out like venom, "- then more than half of the human population will be dead within the first two months." Leaned away, smirked. Derek didn't even have the time to slap a hand over his mouth to drag him away before it was out there, floating around on the airwaves. Stiles literally blew up Talia's entire life, her entire fucking vision, with one sentence. 

People like Stiles, as it turns out. He has a likable face and an even more likable smile, and they like him with Derek, and they like reading about him, watching him on television, looking at his pictures. They like Stiles as a celebrity about a zillion times more than anyone has ever fucking liked Derek as a celebrity.

And, case in point, they like Stiles about a zillion times more than Talia. So, his word carries more weight in certain demographics. People sort of freaked out. Stiles lit a fire underneath Talia's ass, and the rest of everyone else, supporters and not, threw gas on the flames. If there's one thing nearly all weres can agree on, though their reasonings might be different, it's that human populations dwindling is a problem that should be rectified. And if Talia sending them all back to the sanctuaries isn't going to fix the fucking problem, then they'd better find a new solution. 

Stiles stood there, running his fingers through his long hair, smirking and shrugging his shoulders, like it was nothing to him. In some ways, he single handedly _jeopardized_ Talia's entire operation, like she was always accusing Derek of doing during the start of all this. Talia had to admit she was wrong, in front of the entire world, had to go in and see for herself what really happens inside the sanctuaries as they still stand today. 

Unfortunately, Talia doesn't like to let anyone off without paying a price, first. She hooked her talons into Stiles with a fake grin, patted his head, and started dragging him along to all her press conferences, discussions, committee meetings - _since he apparently likes politics so much_ , she said. Forcing him to sit there and endure the repercussions of his actions. Talia really thought that this was a punishment, dragging Stiles along under the assumption he'd be bored and miserable and go out of his mind. She underestimated how much Stiles would give a shit what the discussions over what was going to happen to the humans were going to be like. What direction everything would wind up going, in the end. 

The point is, now Talia is dragging them across the world to speak on human rights overseas, and she's forcing Stiles to be her little poster-boy. Again. 

Stiles is okay with that part. He's so determined to do something, _anything_ , that he'll do even the most inane, degrading, and stupid thing if it'll make any difference to anyone, in the long run. He has no fucking idea what's going to end up happening to the humans, doesn't know what Talia plans to do - but he's on board with the plan, so all he can do is hope for the best. 

The part he's not okay with is the plane. That's all. 

"What do you think is going to happen?" Derek prompts him with a small smile, ignoring his mother's huffing and eye rolling. 

"We're going to crash," Stiles says. "We're going to crash into the ocean, and -"

"And what?" Derek tilts his head to the side, raising his eyebrows. "Sink?" 

Stiles meets his eyes heavily, all serious, and nods his head. He's afraid of sinking. Drowning. He still doesn't know how to swim, because he's petrified of the water, for whatever reason. Maybe that's just another thing about Stiles' past that he just doesn't want to know about, better left in the darkness. So, drowning might just scare him more than most other things. 

"We're not going to sink," Derek puts as much sincerity into this as possible. "We're not going to crash into the ocean, Stiles. I absolutely promise you."

"You're not sure," Stiles says in a small, scared voice. "You can't know." 

That's the thing of it - you really can't know. You can't know what's going to happen, or what events a decision will lead to, or if you're doing the right thing. Sometimes, there isn't even a right thing. There's just what you've got. It was never time that taught Derek that lesson. It was Stiles. Because, for the two of them, things are always, always going to be in the gray area. It's true that they love each other, and it's true that Stiles is Derek's claim, but everything beyond that is just a fucking mess. Their entire relationship, and history, and how they met, and who they are, and what they are. Just a giant fucking mess. In that vein, nothing with them was ever going to be completely and totally _right._

They're still living from _at least_ to _at least_. And that's just what they've got. And they live with that. Make the best out of it. They can't abandon it. 

"I _can_ know that I'd never let anything happen to you," Derek counters. "I'd never let you drown - right? I'd keep you afloat until help came, if it came down to that."

It takes a moment, maybe two. Another emphatic wrist slap from Talia. 

Then, Stiles is nodding his head, taking a hesitant step forwards, leaning up against Derek's side. He stinks of nerves and anxiety, and he'll probably be shaking and throwing up into a paper bag for the vast majority of the trip, but at least he _trusts_. 

It might be true that Stiles and Derek have always been, and may always continue to be, a sinking ship. But they keep each other afloat, amidst all the wreckage. And that's enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all your comments along the way - when it comes to WIP's nothing lights a fire under my ass to finish something than to have someone tell me they're liking it so far so seriously, thanks!!


End file.
